UC-NRLF 


THE  BEACON   BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED    BY 

M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE 


JAMES   FENIMORE   COOPER 

BY 

W.   B.  SHUBRICK    CLYMER 


IIII^BllllllllllfTimiUffilllilllHEH 


-1:j'.ftyti0M.  /,'"''?'  '"/  .//>••// -V 


THE 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 


W.   B.  SHUBRICK    CLYMER 


OFTHE 

UNIVERSITY 

or 

VO^1 


,     BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 
MDCCCC 


Copyright,  /poo 
By  Small,  Maynard  &  Company 

( Incorporated) 


Entered  at  Stationers1  Hall 


Press  of 
George  H.  Ellis,  Boston 


The  photogravure  used  as  a  frontispiece 
to  this  volume  is  after  an  engraving  of  a 
daguerreotype  talcen  by  Brady  in  1850. 
The  present  engraving  is  by  John  Andrew 
&  Son,  Boston. 


To  the  Memory          /*  *7  7  A 
of 

WILLIAM    BRANFORD   SHUBRICK 

U.  S.  N. 


•;: 


PEEFACE. 

It  is  sixty  years  since  Irving  closed  u  The 
P' thfinder"  with  the  gracious  ivords: 

They  may  say  what  they  will  of  Cooper  : 
the  man  who  wrote  this  hook  is  not  only 
a  great  man,  but  a  good  man."  There  is 
not  a  doubt  of  it.  Study  of  his  life  teacties 
that  evil  tongues  need  not  blight  fair  fame. 
Bryant,  in  the  memorial  address  delivered 
Jive  months  after  Cooper's  death,  told  sim 
ple  truth  which  the  world  now  accepts. 
Professor  Lounsbury  thirty  years  later  dem 
onstrated,  by  critical  sifting  of  all  the  pub 
lished  evidence,  that  in  agreeing  with  Irving 
and  Bryant  the  world  is  right. 

Shortly  stating  the  most  significant  facts, 

yet  omitting  so  much  relevant  matter  as  at 

times  to  endanger  narrative  continuity,   I 

I  have  followed,   with  the  incidental  aid  of 

\  literary  histories  and    the  like,    and  with 

I  some  personal  help  from  friends,  the  able 

guidance  of  the  only  biographer  of  Cooper. 

My  indebtedness  to  him  is  interlined  on  al- 


x  PEEFACE 

most  every  page  of  this  tiny  volume,  for 
which  no  claim  is  made  except  that  certain 
hitherto  unpublished  letters,  placed  in  my 
hands  by  kind  fortune,  here  and  there  enable 
Cooper  to  speak  for  himself. 

W.  B.  s.  c. 
BOSTON,  June  23,  1900. 


CHBONOLOGY. 

1789 

September  15.  James  [Fenimore]  Cooper 
was  born  at  Burlington,  New  Jersey. 

1790 

October  10.  His  father  brought  his  family 
to  Cooperstown,  on  Otsego  Lake,  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  where  he  built,  be 
tween  1796  and  1799,  Otsego  Hall. 

1799 

Became  a  private  pupil  of  the  rector  of 
St.  Peter's  Church  in  Albany. 

1802 

Entered,  the  freshman  class  at  Yale  Col 
lege. 

1805 
Was  dismissed  from  college. 

1806-1807 

Served  for  eleven  months  before  the  mast 
aboard  the  Sterling. 

1808 

January  1.  Eeceived  commission  as  mid 
shipman  in  the  United  States  navy. 


xii  CHRONOLOGY 

1808  (continued) 
Served  on  board  the  Vesuvius. 
Was  one  of  a  party  sent  to  Oswego,  on 
Lake  Ontario,  to  build  the  brig  Oneida 
during  the  winter  of  1308-1809. 

1809 

Was    attached    to    the    Was}},    Captain 
James  Lawrence. 
December.  His  father  died. 

1810 

May  9.    Was   granted    a    furlough    of 
twelve  months. 

1811 

January  1.    Was  married    at   Mamaro- 
neck,   Westchester  County,  New  York, 
to  Susan  Augusta  de  Lancey. 
May  6.  Resigned  from  the  navy  on  the 
expiration  of  his  furlough. 
Lived  with  his  wife' s  family  at  Mamaro- 
neck. 

1813-1817 

Lived  for  a  short  time  at  Cooperstown, 
afterward  at  Feniniore. 


CHEONOLOGY  xiii 

1817 

Eeturned  to  Mamaroneck.  His  mother 
died  at  Otsego  Hall.  Went  to  live  at 
Scarsdale. 

1820 
Published  Precaution  anonymously. 

1821 
Published  The  Spy  anonymously. 

1822 
Eemoved  to  New  York. 

1823 

April  18.  Was  made  a  member  of  the 
American  Philosophical  Society,  of 
Philadelphia. 

Published  The  Pioneers,  Tales  for  Fifteen, 
and  The  Pilot,  though  the  last  did  not 
actually  appear  until  January  of  the 
following  year. 

1824 

Eeceived  from  Columbia  College  the  de 
gree  of  Master  of  Arts. 

1825 
Published  Lionel  Lincoln. 

*.    \  '  ' 

i    **~ 

f*,4*j~>-'Y 


-XH 


xiv  CHEONOLOGY 

1826 

Published  TJie  Last  of  the  Mohicans. 
April.   His  name  was  changed,  by  act 
of  Legislature,  to  Fenimore- Cooper. 
May  10.  Was  appointed  consul  at  Lyons. 
June  1.     Sailed  from  New  York,  with  his 
family,  for  Europe.     Lived  in  and  near 
Paris  for  a  year  and  a  half. 

1827 
Published  The  Prairie. 

-    (     t  <-.      "S   <V>*'       L-r-  f-sy  * 

1828 

Published  The  Red  Rover.  Passed  four 
months  in  England.  Travelled  in  Hol 
land,  Belgium,  France,  Switzerland,  and 
Italy.  Published  Notions  of  the  Ameri 
cans. 

1829 

Eelinquished  consulship  at  Lyons. 
Published  The  Wept  of  Wish-ton-  Wish. 
December.  Went  to  Eome  for  the  winter. 


b*< 


1830 

April.  Left  Eome. 

June.     Eeached    Dresden,    where     The 
Water  Witch  was  published. 


CHBO^OLOGY  xv 

1830  (continued) 

July.  Went  to  Paris  on  the  outbreak  of 
the  Bevolution,  and  lived  there  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  next  three  years. 

1831 
Published  The  Bravo. 

1832 
Published  The  Heidenmauer. 

1833 

Published  The  Headsman. 
November  5.  Landed  in  New  York,  after 
an  absence  abroad  of  seven  years  and 
five  months. 

1834 

Eenovated  Otsego  Hall,  which  subse 
quently  became  his  permanent  resi 
dence.  Published  A  Letter  to  His  Coun- 
trymen. 

1835 
Published  The  MoniJcins. 

,<  kAsfr?* 

1836 
Published  Sketches  of  Switzerland. 


*  1 

xvi  CHRONOLOGY 

1837 

Publislied  Gleanings  in  Europe  (France, 
England).      Three    Mile  Point  contro-  J< 
versy,  followed  by  suits  for  libel. 

1838 

Published   Gleanings  in  Europe  (Italy), 
The  American  Democrat,    The  Chronicles  ; 
of  Cooperstown,    Homeward  Bound,    and 
Home  as  Found. 

1839 

May  10.    Published   The  History  of  the 
Navy  of  the  United  States  of  America. 
July  8.    Was  made  a  member  of  the 
Georgia  Historical  Society. 


1840 

Published  The  Pathfinder  and  Mercedes  of 
Castile. 

1841 
Published  The  Deerslayer. 

1842 

Published  The  Two  Admirals. 
Engaged  to  write  regularly  for  Graham's 
Magazine. 


CHBONOLOGY  xvii 

1842  (continued) 

June  16.  Decision  was  rendered  by  the 
arbitrators  in  the  matter  of  the   Naval 


Published  The  Wing -and-  Wing. 

*•        ^        .  jLr      *        \ 


Published  The  Autobiography  of  a  Pocket 
Handkerchief  (in  Graham's  Magazine), 
The  Battle  of  Lake  Erie,  Wyandotle,  and 
Ned  Myers. 

1844 

Published  Afloat  and  Ashore,  Proceedings 
of  the  Naval  Court  Martial  in  the  Case  of 
Alexander  Slidell  Mackenzie,  and  Mites 
Wallingford.  • 

June  6.  Was  made  a  member  of  the 
Maryland  Historical  Society. 

1845 
Published  Satanstoe. 


1846 

Published    The    Chainbearer,     Lives    of 
Distinguished    American    Naval     Officers 


xviii  CHEONOLOGY 

1846  (continued) 

(previously  contributed  to  Graham's 
Magazine},  and  The  Eedskins. 

Xj^jo^^ 

1847 
Published  The  Crater. 

1848 

Published  Jack  Tier  (which  had  ap 
peared  serially  in  Graham' s  Magazine) 
and  The  Oak  Openings. 

1849 
Published  The  Sea  Lions. 

-  Asl^-v^JUJ'^-  i\*       & 

1850 

Published  The  Ways  of  the  Hour. 
June  18.    Upside  Down ;  or,  Philosophy  in 
Petticoats,  a  comedy,  was  produced  by 
Burton. 

1851 

July.  Confirmed  in  the  Protestant  Epis 
copal  Church. 

September  14.  James  Fenimore  Cooper 
died  at  Cooperstown. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

I. 

THERE  came  to  America  in  1679  one 
James  Cooper.  In  the  deeds  showing 
his  purchase,  four  years  later,  of  two 
tracts  of  land  from  the  proprietors  of 
West  New  Jersey,  he  is  referred  to  as  of 
Stratford-on- Avon ;  and  in  certain  con 
veyances  of  parcels  of  land  subsequently 
purchased  in  Philadelphia,  as  a  mer 
chant.  Owning  a  considerable  amount 
of  real  estate  in  New  Jersey  and  Penn 
sylvania,  and  presumably  succeeding  in 
business,  he  is  believed  to  have  become 
a  man  of  some  importance  among  the 
Quakers.  Of  the  family  of  his  first 
wife,  whom  he  married  probably  after 
coming  to  this  country,  not  even  the 
name  survives.  Their  descendants  ap 
pear  to  have  been  well-to-do  farmers. 

Among  them  was  William  Cooper, 
who  was  born  in  Byberry  township, 
Pennsylvania,  seventy-five  years  after 


2  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 
his  ancestor's  arrival  in  this  country. 
In  1775  he  married,  at  Burlington,  New 
Jersey,  Elizabeth,  only  child  of  Eichard 
Fenimore,  who  was  descended  from  early 
English  settlers  in  "New  Jersey,  in  which 
province  the  Fenimores  held  several 
offices.  Both  William  Cooper  and  his 
wife  were  Quakers.  He  became  inter 
ested,  soon  after  the  Eevolution,  in  large 
tracts  of  land  in  New  York  and  else 
where.  His  character,  as  well  as  the 
nature  of  the  country  where  his  illus 
trious  son's  infancy  and  childhood  were 
passed,  is  best  shown  in  some  letters  he 
wrote  to  a  friend  who  had  been  exiled 
from  Ireland  and  had  taken  up  the 
practice  of  the  law  in  New  York.  Be 
ginning  with  a  small  capital  and  a 
large  family,  he  had  settled,  he  writes 
about  1805,  "more  acres  than  any  man 
in  America.  ...  In  1785  I  visited  the 
rough  and  hilly  country  of  Otsego, 
where  there  existed  not  an  inhabi 
tant  nor  any  trace  of  a  road.  I  was 


JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPEE  3 
alone,  three  hundred  miles  from  home, 
without  bread,  meat,  or  food  of  any 
kind.  .  .  .  My  horse  fed  on  the  grass 
that  grew  by  the  edge  of  the  waters. 
I  laid  me  down  to  sleep  in  my  watch- 
coat,  nothing  but  the  melancholy  wilder 
ness  around  me."  At  the  outlet  of 
Otsego  Lake,  the  source  of  the  Susque- 
hanna,  where  for  a  century  Indian  traders 
had  been  accustomed  to  resort,  and  of 
which  the  name  is  supposed  to  signify 
such  a  meeting-place,  he  laid  out  in 
1787  a  village  called  Coopers-Town;  and 
thither  he  brought  his  family  in  1790. 
"This  was  the  first  settlement  I  made,, 
and  the  first  attempted  after  the  Eevolu-< 
tion. ' '  His  success  in  the  difficult  enter -^ 
prise  he  attributes  to  a  "steady  mind,  a 
sober  judgment,  fortitude,  perseverance, 
and,  above  all,  common  sense."  After 
years  of  privation  and  hardship,  in  1796 
contracts  were  made  for  the  construction 
of  Otsego  Hall,  where  the  wise  and  just 
landlord  lived  among  the  community 


4  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
which  he  had  founded.  For  nine  years 
he  was  first  judge  of  the  County  Court 
of  Common  Pleas,  and  he  served  two 
terms  in  Congress.  An  ardent  poli 
tician,  in  close  relations  with  the  Fed 
eralist  leaders,  he  took  an  active  part  in 
the  heated  contests  of  those  critical  times 
when  the  North  American  republic  was 
in  its  infancy. 

On  September  15,  1789,  the  eleventh 
of  William  and  Elizabeth  Fenimore 
Cooper's  twelve  children  was  born  at 
Burlington,  New  Jersey.  He  was  called 
for  his  grandfather,  whose  name  was 
that  of  the  ancestor  who  had  migrated 
from  Stratford  f  and  until  lie  was  past 
thirtyj^ix  his  full_  name_was  James 
Cooper.  While  he  was  still  a  boy,  his 
.mother,  on  the  extinction  of  the  male 
\line  in  her  faonily,  had  expressed  a  wish 
)bhat  one  of  her  children,  should  take  her 
surname,  promising  in  return  to  leave 
such  child  her  real  estate  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Cooperstown.  Her  husband 


JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER     5 

had  objected j  but  James,  _the_ youngest 
of  seven  jBhildren  then  surviving,  had 
offered  to  do  as  his  mother  requested,  j 
Long  after  both  parents  were  dead,  he 
accordingly  petitioned  for  leave  to 
change  his  surname  to  Feniinore,  in-  , 
tending  that  his  name  should  be  James  | 
Cooper  Fenimore.  But  the  legislature 
made  the  surname  Fenimore- Cooper. 
Though  protesting  that  that  was  not 
what  he  had  asked  for,  he  adopted  the 
name  in  that  form;  and  so  for  a  time  he 
occasionally  wrote  it. 

The  re^oval^from__Ms_  birthplace  to 
Cooperstown  when  he  was  but  thirteen 
months  old,  and  the  establishment  there 
of  the  family  residence,  identify ,._Ti IIP 
with_the__State  of  KejF  JCoj-k.  Of  his 
childhood  little  is  told,  except  JJiat  he, 
lived  healthily  —and  ^naturally, sur 
rounded  by  out-of-door  influences  which 
did  much  to  direct  his  tastes  and  tq 
shape  his  character.  For  the  growth  of 
innate  self-reliance  and  purity  of  heartj 


6  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 
dominant—traits  inherited  from  his 
Quaker  parents,  it  would  have  been 
hard  to  find  a  soil  more  favourable  than 
the  young  community  of  which  his 
father  was  the  founder  and  the  leader. 
/  From  an  elder  sister,  who  died  in  1800 
i  in  consequence  of  a  fall  from  a  horse, 
xand  whose  memory  was  always  cherished 
witfr^eculiar  tenderness  by  her  brother, 
the  boy  received  his  earliest  instruction. 
Among  a  number  of  apocryphal  anec 
dotes  about  Cooper  is  one  related  by 
Hawthorne,  who  tells  o.f  Bryant's  saying 
he  had  heard  Cooper  speak  of  having 
held  a  successful  spiritual  communication 
with  this  sister  after  her  death.  The 
story  is  mentioned  here  only  to  give  an 
opportunity  to  correct  a  current  impres 
sion  that  Cooper  believed  in  Spiritualism. 
There  is  ample  evidence  that  such  was 
not  the  case,  but  that  his  only  interest 
in  the  subject  was  an  amused  curiosity 
as  to  the  means  by  which  the  manifesta 
tions  were  produced. 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  7 
The  next  step  from  his  sister's  tuition, 
was  to  " Master"  Cory's  village  "Acad/ 
emy.J>  Thence  he  went,  at  nine,  t0 
Albany,  to  be  for  four  years  a  pupil  of 
the  rector  of  St.  Peter's  Church,  th^ 
son  of  a  beneficed  English  clergy  man,  | 
a  graduate  of  Oxford,  and  a_man__Qf 
scholarshlp^_wkQ.  entertained,  according 
to  a  lively  reminiscent  sketch  drawn  by 
Cooper  many  years  later,  aa  most  pro 
found  reverence  for  the  king  and  the 
nobility ;  was  not  backward  in  express 
ing  his  contempt  for  all  classes  of  dis 
senters  and  all  ungentlemanly  sects  ;  was 
particularly  severe  on  the  immoralities 
of  the  French  Eevolution,  and,  though 
eating  our  bread,  was  not  especially 
lenient  to  our  own ;  .  .  .  spent  his  money 
freely,  and  sometimes  that  of  other 
people ;  was  particularly  tenacious  of 
the  ritual  and  of  all  the  decencies  of  the 
Church  5  detested  a_democrat  as  hp  did 
Jhejjfiol;  .  .  .  prjiyjacL  fervently  on  Sun- 
days ;  decried  all  morals,  institutions, 


8  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
churches,  manners,  and  laws  but  those 
of  England  Mondays  and  Saturdays  j 
and,  as  it  subsequently  became  known, 
was  living  every  day  in  the  week,  in 
vinculo  matrimonii,  with  another  man's 
wife!" 

The  death  of  this  accomplished  gentle 
man  in  1802  sent  his  pujDil_jDn}niaturely 
to  Yale  when  a  mere  stripling  of  thir 
teen,  by  only  two  weeks  the  senior-  of 
the  youngest  student  in  college,  the  poet 
Hillhouse.  Like  many  another  well- 
prepared,  clever  boy  of  truant  disposi 
tion  before  and  since,  CopjDer,  when 
left  to  follow  his  bent,  ne^lefite_d  Jiis 
books,  and  learned  more  about  the  pretty 
surroundings  of  New  Haven  than  about 
1  Greek  and  Latin.  "But  the  study  of 
scenery,"  as  his  biographer  appositely 
remarks,  "  however  desirable  in  itself, 
cannot  easily  be  included  in  a  college 
curriculum."  In  his  third  year,  there 
fore,  the  authorities,  with  President 
Dwight  at  their  head,  saw  no  reason, 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  9 
despite  his  father's  remonstrance,  for  not 
punishing  him  by  dismissal  for  being  en 
gaged  in  some  bit  of  boyish  mischief 
which  they  disapproved  of.  Had  he 
attended  to  his  work  and  taken  his_de- 
greje,  which  Yale  never  in  later  years 
saw  fit  to  honour  herself  Djz^grvinjyjfcm, 
the  chances  are  that  his  novels,  while 
losing  none  of  the  benefit  they  undoubt 
edly  derived  from  his  rambles  in  the 
country,  would  have  gained  in  style. 
Columbia,  in  this  instance  more  intelli- 
than  either  Yale  ^r^Harvard,  in 


nmvfftrrp.d—  mi—  him     .t]ift_JhnTinra.ry 

degree  of  AJkL 

Judge  Cooper  chose  the  navy  as  the 
most  promising  opening  for  his  indepen 
dent  and  adventurous  son,  who  was  ac 
cordingly,  as  a  preliminary  step,  s.ent  tft 
spa,  hftfore  {faff  mast  in  a  merchantman! 
That  was.  the  fashion  ^  of  the  ...day,  when 
there^was  no  naval  ^aettdemy,  "  though 
its  utility,  ''  as  Cooper  sensibly  says,  "on 
the  whole,  may  very  well  be  questioned.  " 


10  JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPER 

An  animated  account  of  his  eleven 
months'  experience  aboard  the  Sterling, 
"  one  of  the  wettest  ships  that  ever  floated, 
when  heading  up  against  the  sea,"  is 
given  in  Ned  Myers,  which  is  the  true 
story  of  the  life  of  a  shipmate  on  this 
first  voyage,  who,  after  passing  some 
twenty-five  years  out  of  sight  of  land, 
turned  up  at  Cooperstown  in  1843,  and 
spun  the  yarn  which  Cooper  wove  into 
a  book.  The  Sterling  was  commanded 
by  a  young  Maine  man  who  was  "kind 
and  considerate  in  his  treatment  of  all 
hands  " ;  and  she  carried  a  motley  crew, 
comprising,  besides  Americans,  a  Portu 
guese,  a  Spaniard,  a  Prussian,  a  Dane,  an 
Englishman,  a  Scotch  boy,  and  a  Cana 
dian.  After  a  stormy  voyage  of  some 
forty  days  from  New  York,  "  during 
which  the  ship  was  on  a  bow-line  most  of 
the  time, "  they  anchored  in  St.  Helen's 
Eoads,  and  thence  went  up  to  London 
to  discharge  cargo.  ' 1 1  had  one  or  two 
cruises  of  a  Sunday/'  says  Myers,  uin 


JAMES  FEOTMOBE  COOPER  11 
tow  of  Cooper,  who  soon  became  a  branch 
pilot  in  those  waters,  about  the  parks 
and  west  end.  .  .  .  Most  of  us  went  to  see 
the  monument,  St.  Paul's,  and  the  lions  ; 
and  Cooper  put  himself  in  charge  of  a 
beef-eater,  and  took  a  look  at  the  ar 
senals,  jewels,  and  armoury.  He  had  a 
rum  time  of  it,  in  his  sailor  rig,  but 
hoisted  in  a  wonderful  lot  of  gib 
berish,  according  to  his  own  account 
of  the  cruise. "  The  following  Janu 
ary  the  Sterling  had  a  stormy  passage  to 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  was  saved  by  an 
English  frigate  from  a  Portuguese  pirate, 
and  narrowly  escaped  being  run  down  by 
a  man-of-war.  She  had  rough  weather 
again,  and  ran  short  of  provisions,  on 
the  return  voyage  to  London.  There  she 
remained  for  two  or  three  months,  not 
sailing  for  Philadelphia  until  the  end  bf 
July.  It  is  of  this  homeward  voyage 
that  Cooper  afterward  wrote:  " I  have 
myself  been  one  of  eleven  hands,  officers 
included,  to  navigate  a  ship  of  near  three 


12  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 
hundred  tons  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean  ; 
and,  what  is  more,  we  often  reefed  top 
sails  with  the  watch. "  Fifty- two  days  of 
storm  and  adventure  brought  the  Ster 
ling  safe,  at  last,  to  port  on  September 
18,  1807.  Such  was  the  first  taste  of  salt 
water  of  the  eighteen-year-old  boy  who 
at  thirty-four  gave  to  the  world  the  first 
tale  of  the  sea  since  Smollett's  Roderick 
Random. 

Cooper  entered  the  navy  as  a  mid 
shipman  on  January  1,  1808.  During 
the  next  three  years  he  saw  a  fair 
amount  of  service.  The  part  of  it  most 
important  in  result  was  a  trip  to  Lake 
Ontario,  to  build  the  Oneida,  a  brig  of 
sixteen  guns,  intended  for  use  in  the  war 
which  then  threatened  with  England. 
/The  experiences  of  the  winter  at  Oswego 
(1808-9),  related  in  Cooper's  biograph 
ical  notice  of  Woolsey,  who  commanded 
the  expedition,  were^  Ujsed  more  than 
thirty  years  aftej^rai&iii-^g  jPafhfinder. 
In  ~1809,  after  a  visit  with  Woolsey 


u 

f, 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  13 
to  Niagara  Falls,  Cooper  was  left  with 
the  gunboats  on  Lake  Champlain.  In 
the  same  year  he  was  attached  to  the 
Wasp,  under  Captain  Lawrence,  a  na 
tive  of  Burlington  and  a  personal 
friend,  the  heroic  commander  of  the 
Chesapeake  in  her  action  with  the  Shan 
non.  On  board  the  Wasp  began  a  life 
long  friendship  with  Shyihripirjjaf  Sout' 
Carolina,  a  midshipman  like  himself, 
and  his  junior  by  one  year,  to  whom  he 
dedicated  The  Pilot  and  The  Red  Eover. 

In  December  of  1809  Judge  Cooper 
was  knocked  on  the  head  by  an  oppo 
nent,  after  a  political  meeting  in  Al 
bany,  and  died  from  the  effect  of  the 
blow. 

To  the  eldest  son,  Eichard,  thus  left 
head  of  the  family,  James  writes  as  fol 
lows  from  New  York  on  May  18,  1810 : 
"When  you  were  in  the  city,  I  hinted  to 
you  my  intention  of  resigning  at  the  end 
of  this  session  of  Congress,  should  noth 
ing  be  done  for  the  navy.  My  only 


14  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
reason  at  that  time  was  the  blasted  pros 
pects  of  the  service.  I  accordingly 
wrote  rny  resignation,  and,  as  usual, 
offered  it  to  Captain  Lawrence  for  his 
inspection.  He  very  warmly  recom 
mended  to  me  to  give  the  service  the  trial 
of  another  year  or  two,  at  the  same  time 
offering  to  procure  me  a  furlough  which 
would  leave  me  perfect  master  of  my 
actions  in  the  interval.  I  thought  it 
wisest  to  accept  this  proposition.  At 
the  end  of  this  year  I  have  it  in  my 
power  to  resign,  should  the  situation  of 
the  country  warrant  it."  He  goes  on  to 
pay  that  he  has  met  Miss  de  Lancey,  and 
(asked  her  to  marry  him  j  and  he  re 
quests  his  brother  to  write  to  her  father, 
approving  of  the  match. 

John  Peter  de  Lancey  —  whcsjgjlugue- 
ngt-gmndiatJier,  ^tienne,  had  fled  from 
0  Normandy  on  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  and  in  1686  had  come, 
to  New  York — was  the  fourth  son  of 
James,  Chief  Justice  and  Lieutenant- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER    15 

Governor  of  New  York,  and  of  his  wife 
Anne,  eldest  daughter  of  Hon.  Caleb 
Heathcote,  Lord  of  the  Manor  of  Sears- 
dale.  Born  in  New  York,  and  educated 
at  Harrow  and  in  the  Military  School  at 
Greenwich,  he  entered  the  army,  and 
became  a  captain  in  an  Irish  regiment. 
After  serving  in  a  Loyalist  regiment 
during  the  Revolution,  he  returned  to 
England,  left  the  army,  and  married 
Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Colonel  Richard 
Floyd,  of  Long  Island.  With  her  he 
came  back  to  Westchester  County  in 
1789,  and  passed  the  remainder  of  his 
life  at  Heathcote  Hill,  which  he  had  in 
herited  from  his  mother,  and  where  he 
built  a  house  on  the  site  of  the  old 
manor  house,  which  had  been  burned. 
Here  his  daughter,  Susan  Augusta,  was! 

born;    ar^  T^ftrfr   n^    7\Tpw    VeajsLa^nqy  i 


became^-Mfs.  James  Cooper. 
Cooper  and  his  young  bride  began 
married  life  auspiciously  by  playing  a 
game  of  chess  between  the  ceremony 


16  JAMES  FESTIMOBE  COOPEE 
and  the  supper.  Then,  "  he  driving  two 
horses  tandein,"  they  made  their  wed 
ding  journey  to  Cooperstown  in  a  gig. 
For  over  forty  years  their  life  was  in  the 
deepest  sense  united.  She  was  richly 
endowed  with  the  gracious  feminine  fac 
ulty  of  guiding  by  affection  the  man 
who  yet  controls  the  household,  and  he 
was  chivalrously  devoted  to  her.  At 
the  expiration  of  his  furlough  a  few 
months  after  the  marriage,  instead  of 
applying  for  duty,  he  carried  out  his  in 
tention,  formed  a  year  before,  of  resign 
ing  from  the  navy.  This  step  pleased 
her,  for  she  dreaded  separation  from 
him.  "She  confesses,"  he  writes  long 
afterward,  "she  would  never  have  done 
for  Lady  Collingwood. " 

After  a  brief  essay  at  housekeeping  in 
a  cottage  at  Maniaroneck  so  tiny  that 
he  called  it  Closet  Hall,  the  young 
people  returned  to  live  with  her  family 
at  Heathcote  Hill,  whence  they  re 
moved,  with  their  two  little  girls,  to 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  17 
Fenimore,  a  small  place  near  Coopers- 
town.  The  memories  of  the  next  few 
years  are  full  of  charm.  On  a  ris 
ing  knoll  overlooking  the  lake  and  vil 
lage  a  stone  house  was  begun,  in  which 
they  expected  to  pass  their  lives.  Rid 
ing,  driving,  rowing,  skating,  garden 
ing,  playing  the  flute,  Cooper  at 
twenty-five,  brave  and  handsome,  past 
uring  on  a  hill  close  by,  called  Mt.  Ovis, 
the  merino  sheep  which  he  had  intro 
duced  into  the  county,  had  truly  a 
pleasant  calling.  HR  was  actiYe^_fcQiL_as 
secretary  of  the  County  Agricultural 
Society,  and  as  vestryman  of  Christ 
Church  and  secretary  of  the  Otsego 
County  Bible  Society  ;  and  he  found 
a  few  congenial  associates  among  the 
many  European  residents  of  the  village. 
His  mother  was  living  at  Otsego  Hall 
with  his  elder  brothers.  "She  took 
great  delight  in  flowers,  and  the  south 
end  of  the  long  hall  was  like  a  green 
house  in  her  time.  She  was  a  great 


18  JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPER 
reader  of  romances.  She  was  a  marvel 
lous  house-keeper,  and  beautifully  nice, 
and  neat,  in  all  her  arrangements.  Her 
flower-garden  was  at  the  south  of  the 
house,  and  was  considered  something 
wonderful  in  the  variety  of  flowers." 

The  first  little  girl  died  at  Fenimore, 
and  two  others  were  born.  And  then 
the  family  set  out,  in  1817,  for  a  visit  to 
Heathcote  Hill,  expecting  to  return  in  a 
few  months  to  the  stone  house  which 
was  still  building.  But  they  never 
lived  in  it  ;  for  it  was  burned,  the  prop 
erty  was  sold,  and  the  absence  of  a  few 
months  extended  to  seventeen  years, 
Later  in  1817  Cooper's  mother  died. 

They  had  not  been  long  at  Heathcote 
Hill  before  it  was  decided  to  build  a 
country-house  on  a  farm  in  Scarsdale, 
four  miles  from  Marnaroneck,  called 
Angevine  —  the  name  of  the  preceding. 
Huguenot  tenants.  The  situation  is 
described  as  commanding  a  "  beautiful 
view  over  the  farms  and  woods  of  the 


JAMES  FEKIMOKE  COOPEE   19 

adjoining  country,  in  whose  varied 
groves  hickory  and  tulip -tree,  cedar 
and  sassafras,  grew  abundantly, ' '  and  as 
overlooking  the  Sound  "always  dotted 
with  the  white  sails  the  sailor's  eye 
loved  to  follow  in  their  graceful  move 
ments  to  and  fro,  while  the  low  shores 
of  Long  Island,  with  the  famous  pippin 
orchards  of  Newtown,  formed  the  dis 
tant  background. "  In^this  attractive 
spot,  Cooper^ led  much  the-same-soi't  of) 
life  as  at  Penjmore^=r  driving,  riding, 
sailing,  reading  in  a  desultory  way,  and 
always  much  interested  in  gardening 
and  in  politics.  In  7t818  he  was  ap 
pointed  paymaster,  and  the  next  year1 
quartermaster,  in  the  fourth  division  oft 
infantry  of  the  New  York  State  Militia.  I 
As  Governor  Clinton's  aide,  in  blue  and 
buff  uniform,  with  cocked  hat  and 
sword,  and  the  title  of  Colonel,  he 
would  go  to  reviews  mounted  on  his 
favourite  horse,  e '  Bull-head. ' ' 

One  evening  —  the  story  runs  —  as  he 


20  JAMES  FEMMOKE  COOPER 
,was  reading  aloud  to  Mrs.  Cooper  a 
jnovel  which  had  come  from  England 
an  the  last  monthly  packet,  he  impa- 
'tiently  exclaimed,  "  I  could_  jmte 
!  y°JL  a  betj££— Jbook-  myself ! ' '  She 
'laughed  at  the  absurd  idea  that  he,  who 
,'disliked  even  writing  a  letter,  should 
•  write  a  book.  But  he  was  bent  on  try 
ing,  and^  almost  at  once  began  "a  tale, 
"not  yet  joanied,  Jthe  .scene -laid.,  in  Eng- 
l^!ndJ_as_aLjma!tt^r  of  j^vnrsp^??  After 
writing  a  few  chapters,  he  was  for  giving 
it  up ;  but  she  urged  him  to  finish  it 
and,  to  his  great  amusement,  to  print 
it.  So  it  was  decided  to  hear  what 
their  friends  and  neighbours,  the  Jays, 
would  say.  They  accordingly  set  out 
in  the  gig  for  Bedford  with  the  manu 
script.  The  audience  approved,  one 
lady,  who  was  not  in  the  secret,  feeling 
sure  she  had  "read  it  before.7'  After 
consultation  with  Charles  Wilkes  and 
other  friends,  Precaution,  which  aimed 
to  imitate  the  average  English  story  of 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  21 
fashionable  life,  was  published  anony 
mously  in  1820.  The  authorship  was 
attributed  to  an  English  lady.  Though 
this  first  and  last  attempt  of  Cooper's  to 
copy  any  one  else  now  reposes  in  oblivion 
beside  its  nameless  model,  the  publican 
tion^  was  .yeJLmomentous 


of  The  Spy>  whichjw;as_liter- 
ally  the  u  first  brilliantly  successful  ro 
mance  published  in  America.  " 


II. 

THE  early  volumes  of  Stedman  and 
Hutchinson's  Library  of  American  Litera 
ture  conclusively  demonstrate  the  liter 
ary  sterility  of  this  country  during  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  or 
(to  be  precise)  between  Captain  John 
Smith's  True  Eelation  (1608) — apocry- 
phally  reputed  to  be  the  first  American 
book— and  the  Wieland  (1798)  of  Charles 
Brockden  Brown,  who  is  invariably 
spoken  of  as  the  first  professional  Amer 
ican  writer.  That  interval  in  England 
includes  all  the  great  literature  which 
appeared  between  King  Lear  and  the 
Lyrical  Ballads,  whereas  the  only  fact 
universally  known  about  the  writing  so 
copiously  produced  in  America  during 
those  years  is  that  its  character  is  funda 
mentally  religious  or  political,  as  dis 
tinguished  from  literary.  OurJ^uaker 
iandJPuritan  ancestors  for  several  genera 
tion^  consecrated  ~their  lives  to  the 


JAMES  FESTIMOBE  COOPER   23 

making  of  a  nation.  .  "With,  the  Muses_ 
they  did  not  dally  overmuch.  So  it 
comes  about  that  the  first  man  west  of 
the  Atlantic  to  publish  what  may  fairly 
be  rated  as  imaginative  prose  fiction  was 
Brown,  and  he  was  alone.  In  1845 
Cooper  writes,  perhaps  with  Brown  in 
mind,  "The  American  who  could  write 
a  book  —  a  real,  live  book  —  forty  years 
since  was  a  sort  of  prodigy."  The  year 
1798,  in  short,  dates  the  appearance, 
here  and  in  England,  of  the  spirit  which 
there  burst  forth  in  the  great  romantic 
period  that  at  Scott's  death,  in  1832,  was 
complete,  but  which  in  America  had, 
up  to  1832,  found  no  expression  in  verse 
more  considerable  than  an  enlarged  col 
lection  of  Bryant's  early  poems.  Bry 
ant's  opinion  of  current  American  poetry 
in  1818  was  that  those  of  his  country 
men  who  read  the  English  poets  of  the 
day  showed  better  taste  than  those  who 
wrote  verse.  During  the  first  two  decades 
of  the  century  —  from  Brown's  half- 


24    JAMES  FElSTIMOEE  COOPEE 

dozen  novels  (once  popular  in  a  limited 
sense,  but  long  ago  forgotten)  until  The 
Sketch-Book  and  The  Spy  and  Bryant's 
first  thin  volume  of  eight  poems  —  the 
(United  States  were,  indeed,  a  literary 
(desert,  with^carcely  an_oasis  sayje  Knick 
erbocker's  History  of  New  York,  Thanatop- 
sis,  and  To  a  Waterfowl.  To  say  that  they 
then  had  neither  literary  past  nor  present 
is  but  to  state  the  arid  fact.  Fisher 
Ames  went  so  far  at  the  time  as  to  deny 
them  literary  future.  Clearly,  there- 
fore,  The  Sketch-Book  and  The  Spy  rank 
|Irying^nd,CQppeiLas  the  earliest.  Amer- 
1  icans_Jbo_  make- 


i  to_iniaginative  prose  literature. 

The  Eev.  Jeremy  Belknap,  founder 
of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
had,  it  is  true,  essayed  historical  fiction 
in  The  Foresters,  which  is  described  as  an 
"  allegorical  account  of  the  colonial  set 
tlements7'  ;  and  Isaac  Mitchell's  Asylum, 
with  its  castle  in  Connecticut,  and  its 
figure  of  Franklin  dispensing  sage  coun- 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  25 
sel  to  a  Yale  man,  may  be  mentioned  in 
a  necrology  or  two.  But  such  impotent 
productions  as  these,  which  were  never 
alive,  left  the  fiejd_clea£_ iJQjL.a  strong 
man  to  nationalise,. ...  by  putting... .tha. 
American  stamp  on  It,  the_. historical 
romance  which  Scott  had  brought  into 
fashion.  So  The  Spy,  perhaps  begun 
with  a  desire  to  vindicate  American 
independence  of  British  literary  prece 
dent,  was  one  of  the  first  proofs  that 
here,  too,  was  romantic  material. 

The  scene  wasJaid4n  the  region  which 
the  author  knew  ..bxJt^lng--in, ..it,  and 
where  traditions  of  Eevolutionary  times, 
when  Westchester  County  had  been, 
neutral  ground  for  the  armies  of  invasion 
and  defence,  were  repeated  to  him  by 
surviving  witnesses  of  the  incidents 
which  they  narrated.  He  used  to  go 
among  the  old  farmers,  and  have  them 
to  pass  the  evening  with  him,  when, 
over  the  cider  and  hickory  nuts  in  the 
parlor  at  Angevine,  they  would  tell 


26  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
him  about  the  battle  of  White  Plains 
and  the  skirmishes  of  the  Cow-boys, 
Hessians,  and  Skinners.  In  this  way  he 
learned  all  the  gossip  of  the  time,  and 
his  intercourse  with  people  who  had 
actually  taken  part  with  the  British  en 
abled  him  to  treat  their  side  fairly. 
The  central  character  was  suggested  by 
\  a  story  of  J&hn  Jay^,  who,  on  retiring 
[from  his  last  public  office,  the  governor- 
Iship  of  New  York,  had  gone  in  1801  to 
I  pass  the  close  of  his  life  on  his  farm  in 
Westchester.  "  Then,  as  he  smoked  his 
long  clay  pipe,'7  says  Jay's  biographer, 
"he  used  to  delight  in  telling  anecdotes 
of  the  Revolution,  the  true  history  of 
which,  he  often  said,  never  had  been  and 
never  would  be  written. ' '  One  of  these 
anecdotes,  told  on  a  summer  afternoon 
to  his  son  and  to  Cooper,  who  had  been 
school-fellows  at  Albany,  was  about  an 
agent  whom  Jay,  when  chairman  of  a 
secret  committee  appointed  by  Congress, 
had  employed  to  gather  information  of 


JAMES  FEMMORE  COOPER   27 

the  plans  and  movements  of  the  British. 
So  deeply  had  it  impressed  Cooper  that, 
when  he  came  to  write  The  Spy  years 
afterward,  the  thin,  stooping  figure  of 
Harvey  Birch  stepped  alive  into  the 
scene  which  was  waiting  for  him.  All 
else  in  the  book  is  invention. 

The  first  volume,  written  quickly,  was 
laid  aside  through  fear  of  failure  j  and 
when  the  tale  was  taken  up  after  an 
interval  of  some  months,  the  publisher, 
foreseeing  that  it  might  run  on  to  an  un 
profitable  length,  induced  the  author  to 
write  the  last  chapter,  and  to  let  him 
print  and  page  it  before  the  plot  had 
been  fully  contrived  —  a  circumstance 
for  which  Cooper  afterward  apologises 
without  seeking  to  excuse  it.  Such  hap 
hazard  lack  of  method  resulted  in  a 
story  far  less  good  than  might  have  been 
made  of  the  material.  Cooper  was  not 
yet  sure  of  himself.  The  success,  how 
ever,  was  one  of  the  astonishing  facts  in 
the  history  of  books.  Published  anouy- 


28   JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE 

mously  in  the  autumn  of  1821,  The  Spy 
instantly  caught  the  imagination  of 
America,  England,  and  France.  It  was 
dramatised,  and  translated  into  almost 
every  European  language  ;  and  soon 
Harvey  Birch  was  one  of  the  most  popu 
lar  personages  in  fiction.  Betty  Flana 
gan,  too,  was  warmly  commended  by  so 
competent  a  judge  of  Irish  character  as 
Miss  Edgeworth.  Cooper  afterward  re 
gretted,  with  a  delicacy  of  feeling  which 
has  gone  out  of  fashion,  the  introduction 
into  a  novel  of  the  revered  Washington. 
Several  pretenders  set  up  claims  to 
identity  with  the  original  of  Harvey 
Birch,  one  man  even  asserting  that 
"Mr.  Cooper  used  to  visit  at  his  house 
frequently  for  the  purpose  of  hearing 
his  adventures  and  writing  them  out  in 
The  Spy."  Another  claimant  was  one 
Enoch  Crosby,  whose  story,  as  related  in 
a  dull  volume  with  no  merit  save  rarity, 
coincides  at  several  points  rather  strik 
ingly  with  that  of  the  patriot  peddler. 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  29 
But  the  book,  to  which  Cooper  himself 
attached  no  importance,  does  not  ring 
trne.  All  such  idle  tales  are  scarcely 
worth  recalling.  More  pertinent,  as 
illustrative  of  the  effect  of  reality  pro 
duced  by  the  character,  is  the  anecdote, 
quoted  by  Cooper's  biographer,  that  a 
secret  agent  of  Louis  Philippe's  prefect 
of  police  took  Harvey  Birch's  name, 
and  imitated  his  conduct. 


III. 

THE  New  York  of  three- quarters  of  a 
century  ago,  though  astonishingly  in  ad 
vance  of  its  condition  at  the  opening  of 
the  century,  cannot  now  be  pictured 
without  a  determined  effort  of  imagina 
tion,  based  on  study  of  the  amazing 
growth  that  has  taken  place.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that,  when  Cooper  went  there  to 
live  in  1822,  in  order  to  be  near  his 
publisher  and  to  put  his  daughters  to 
school,  the  house  he  first  rented  in 
Broadway,  just  above  Prince  Street, 
was  " almost  out  of  town.'7  The  me 
tropolis  was  then  the  scene  of  a  good  deal 
of  literary  activity  in  a  small  way,  the 
accounts  of  which,  and  of  the  men  who 
took  part  in  it,  are  now  more  enter 
taining  than  most  of  the  literary  vent 
ures  made  by  the  members  of  the 
so-called  "  Knickerbocker  School." 

In  those  primitive  days  the  clever 
men  used  to  meet  at  the  taverns,  which 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  31 
served  them  as  clubs,  and  there  discuss 
everything  under  the  starry  cope  of 
heaven.  Of  course,  Cooper  founded  a 
club.  He  called  it  the  Lunch  j  it  is 
commonly  known  as  the  Bread  and 
Cheese.  As  he  made  all  the  nomina 
tions,  and  as  one  ballot  of  cheese 
excluded,  the  membership  was  represen 
tative  and  choice ;  for  he  knew  every 
body  worth  knowing  —  army  and  navy 
officers,  lawyers,  painters,  writers,  clergy 
men,  merchants,  and  men  of  leisure. 
Chancellor  Kent  was  a  member,  and. 
Wiley  the  publisher,  Jarvis  the  painter 
and  jester,  DeKay  the  naturalist,  Du-| 
rand  the  engraver  and  painter,  Ver-! 
planck  the  versatile  man  of  letters,! 
Charles  King  who  was  afterward  presi-. 
dent  of  Columbia,  Morse  the  artist  andj 
inventor,  Dr.  John  W:  Francis,  and  the^ 
poets  Bryant  and  Halleck.  Among  men 
of  note  who  were  frequent  guests  was 
Bishop  Hobart.  Cooper  and  Halleck 
were  the  guiding  spirits.  t  i  Cooper, 


32  JAMES  FEKIMORE  COOPER 
when  in  town,  was  always  present/' 
writes  Bryant  in  1852  ;  l  i  and  I  reraeni- 
ber  being  struck  with  the  inexhaustible 
vivacity  of  his  conversation  and  the 
minuteness  of  his  knowledge  in  every 
thing  which  depended  upon  acuteness 
of  observation  and  exactness  of  recollec 
tion."  On  Thursday  evenings  these 
congenial  men  used  to  meet  at  Wash 
ington  Hall,  at  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Chambers  Street,  where  the  Stewart 
Building  now  stands.  The  evening  was 
concluded  with  a  supper,  each  mem 
ber  taking  his  turn  as  caterer,  and  a 
coloured  woman,  Abigail  Jones,  "carry 
ing  out  the  programme  to  perfection  in 
the  way  of  cooking." 

Meanwhile  The  Pioneers  had  raised 
even  higher  the  reputation  of  the  author 
of  The  Spy.  Ttotj:fiv^_hjmdred_copies 
are  said  to  have  been  sold  befora_noon 
on  the  day  of  publication^  The  scene 
of  the_tale  is  f hat^f_Coopej^s_childhopd, 
and  Judge  Temple  is—accepted  «s  a 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  33 
sketch  of  his  father.  Some  of  the  in 
cidents  are  true,  and  some  fictitious. 
But  Natty  is  as  genuine  a  creation  as 
Eip  Van  Winkle.  "With  the  excep 
tion  of  his  leathern  stockings,  which  were 
worn  by  a  very  prosaic  old  hunter,  of 
the  name  of  Shipman,  who  brought 
game  to  the  Hall/7  there  is  no  founda 
tion  in  fact  for  the  character  who  grew 
in  the  writer's  hands  to  be  the  familiar 
friend  of  all  boys.  In  this  book,  in 
which  Natty,  "with  his  silent  footfall, 
stepped  from  beneath  the  shadows  of 
the  old  pines  into  the  winter  sunlight, " 
he  is  less  firmly  handled  and  less  con 
sistent  than  in  the  later  Leather- Stock 
ing  tales,  three  of  which  touch  on  earlier 
periods  of  his  life.  The  descriptions, 
moreover,  which  charmed  the  public 
of  1823  by  their  spontaneity  and  native 
fragrance,  make  the  book  seem  to  us 
rather  dull  by  comparison  with  several 
of  those  which  followed.  Had  the  mate 
rial  been  cast  in  the  form  of  personal 


34  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 

reminiscence,  it  would  have  been  less 
read  then,  but  would  now  be  more  in 
teresting. 

An  act  of  kindness  deserves  to  be  re 
corded  here.  A  small  volume,  entitled 
Tales  for  Fifteen;  or,  Imagination  and 
Heart,  was  published  by  Wiley  in  1823. 
Some  ten  or  fifteen  years  afterward 
Cooper  brought  home  a  copy  which  he 
had  bought,  and  told  his  family  that 
he  had  written  the  two  little  stories 
which  it  contained,  and  had  given  them 
to  his  friend  Wiley,  who  was  in  straits 
at  the  time.  The  paper  cover  of  that 
now  almost  unique  copy  announces  as  in 
press  the  fourth  edition  of  The  Spy,  the 
third  edition  of  The  Pioneers,  and  The 
Pilot. 

As  all  the  world  may  read  the  in 
troduction  in  which  Cooper  tells  how 
The  Pilot  originated  in  his  thinking  he 
could  write  a  more  nautical  story  than 
Scott's  Pirate,  then  new,  it  will  suffice 
to  repeat  here  that  the  plot  was  sug- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER    35 

gested  by  Paul  Jones's  cruise  in  the 
Eanger,  and  his  descents  on  Whitehaven 
and  St.  Mary's  Isle.  Each  of  Cooper's 
previous  books  has  been_surpassed  in  its 
kind.  The  Pilot  has  never  been  equalled 
/in__nautical  power^  though  there  are 
i  plenty  of  books  about  sea  life  which  are 
^better  as  stories.  Oddly  enough,  Cooper 
was  dissatisfied  with  Tom  Coffin,  pre 
ferring  Boltrope.  The  superiority  of 
Tom  is  that  his  acts  are  not  imaginable 
as  taking  place  except  in  the  very  cir 
cumstances  in  which  he,  and  no  one 
else,  performs  them ;  whereas  Boltrope 
talks  and  conducts  himself  much  as 
several  of  Cooper's  other  old  salts  might 
do,  and  do,  in  circumstances  somewhat 
similar.  Of  essentially  the  same  type 
as  Leather- Stocking,  Long  Tom  is  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  a  copy  of  him. 
In  fact,  the  fully  developed  Leather- 
Stocking  of  the  later  books  may  rather 
be  said  to  have  some  of  his  predecessor's 
traits.  If  it  be  necessary  to  look  any- 


36  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
where  for  the  original  of  the  simple- 
hearted  cockswain,  perhaps  a  suggestion 
may  be  found  in  Mr.  Irish,  the  mate 
of  the  Sterling  when  Cooper  made  his 
voyage  before  the  mast.  He,  too,  was 
from  Nantucket,  and  was  a  i  i  prime  fel 
low,  and  fit  to  command  a  ship. " 

The  Pilot  was  the  last  of  the  trio  of 
books  which  raised  their  author  to  a 
pinnacle  of  popularity  not  reached  be 
fore  or  since  by  an  American  novelist. 
To  the  friend  to  whom  he  had  read 
passages  for  criticism  before  dedicating 
the  tale  to  him,  he  wrote  from  New 
York,  a  few  weeks  after  its  publication, 
in  topping  spirits:  "I  have  been  so 
stuffed  up  with  a  cold  in  my  head  since 
I  got  back  to  good,  great,  and  magnani 
mous  New  York,  that  writing  has  been 
altogether  out  of  the  question.  How 
ever,  I  am  obliged  to  come  to  the  dirty 
employment  once  more,  and  one  of  my 
first  efforts  in  that  way  shall  be  to  let 
you  know  how  safely  I  got  out  of 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER   37 

Yankee- land !  I  supped  at  Providence 
in  good  season.  Next  day  Newcombe 
dined  with  us  at  Whipple's  (being  Sun 
day),  and  a  good  time  we  had  of  it. 
There  was  a  bottle  of  old  Blaze- Castle 
Madeira,  about  which  there  were  certain 
legends  of  captures  in  the  Eevolution 
and  perils  by  land  and  perils  by  water, 
which  I  forget  j  but  this  I  remember 
well,  that  after  I  saw  the  bulge  in  the 
bottom  of  that  bottle,  I  cared  not  the 
snap  of  a  finger  for  perils  of  any  sort ; 
and  the  only  sense  of  fear  I  entertained 
was,  that  our  host  had  no  more  of  the 
precious  cordial.  .  .  .  The  roads  were 
good  and  the  weather  tolerable,  so  I 
reached  home,  hearty  and  hungry.  .  .  . 
"Pilot  is  decidedly  successful.  The 
sale  is  the  best  criterion  in  such  matters, 
and  that  is  very  great.  It  is  very  little 
if  any  short  of  Spy  in  popularity,  though 
opinions  are  as  various  as  men's  minds. 
I  found  Wiley  had  the  book  in  the  hands 
of  five  printers  on  my  return  for  a  re- 


38    JAMES  FEXIMOEE  COOPER 
print.     If  it  has  not  been  as  much  com 
mended  it  has  certainly  been  less  assailed 
than  any  book  I  have  ever  written.     So 
much  for  OMT  joint  efforts.77 

Three  months  later  Bryant  writes  to 
his  wife  of  meeting  Cooper  at  dinner, 
where  he  "  engrossed  the  whole  conver 
sation,  and  seems  a  little  giddy  with  the 
great  success  his  works  have  met  with." 
What  wonder  that  the  hearty,  cheery, 
breezy  author  of  The  Spy,  The  Pioneers, 
and  The  Pilot  —  the  only  American 
writer  of  fiction  except  Irving  who  had 
ever  had  any  but  a  restricted  local  suc 
cess —  should,  by  aa  certain  emphatic 
frankness77  of  manner,  have  " somewhat 
startled 7  7  the  shy,  retiring  country  poet 
who  had  not  yet  found  his  place  on  the 
staff  of  the  Evening  Post!  The  casual 
acquaintance  thus  begun  when  both  were 
making  trial  of  authorship  grew  to  be  an 
unclouded  friendship,  based  on  mutual 
respect,  of  which  the  record  remains  in 
the  memorial  address  delivered  by 
after  Co_o£er?s_dealh. 


JAMES  FEKIMORE  COOPER  39 
Later  in  the  year  1824,  Bryant's 
friend  Bichard  Henry  Dana,  poet  and 
essayist,  as  well  as  one  of  the  early 
editors  of  the  North  American  Review, 
writes  from  Cambridge  of  two  gentle 
men,  recently  from  England,  reporting 
that  Cooper  was  in  "high  snuff77  there, 
and  saying  that  he  u  ranks  at  least  with 
Irving,  and  that  no  works  meet  with  a 
quicker  sale. ' 7  Dana  deprecates  a  knock- 
kneed  article  on  The  Pilot  by  Willard 
Phillips,  which  "can  do  no  harm,  to 
Cooper, ' 7  who  is  * ( to  the  windward  of 
the  American  reviewers,  at  least."  To 
this  Bryant  replies  :  "  What  you  tell  me 
of  the  success  of  our  countryman,  Cooper, 
in  England,  is  an  omen  of  good  things. 
I  hope  it  is  the  breaking  of  a  bright  day 
for  American  literature.'7 

The  Pilot  was  followed  by  Lionel  Lin 
coln,  the  first  of  a  projected  series,  never 
carried  further,  of  "Legends  of  the  Thir 
teen  Republics.77  Cooper  was  as  careful 
in  preparing  it  as  he  had  been  careless 


40    JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 

in  the  case  of  The  Spy.  i  i  Every  effort  to 
preserve  accuracy  was  made.  The  prin 
cipal  historical  authorities,  the  state 
papers,  official  reports,  etc.,  etc.,  were 
studied.  A  journey  to  Boston  was  made 
for  the  purpose  of  going  over  the  ground 
in  person.  Even  almanacs,  and  records 
of  the  weather,  were  consulted,  to  insure 
greater  accuracy  in  detail.'7  Such  is 
Miss  Cooper's  account  of  her  father's  way 
of  setting  about  a  piece  of  work  which 
he  grew  tired  of  and  which  tires  his 
readers.  The  method  was  the  reverse 
of  his  habit  of  writing  without  notes  as 
the  mood  took  him.  The  natural  result 
was  a  dull  book  containing,  however, 
spirited  battle-pieces  —  notably,  the  bat 
tle  of  Bunker  Hill,  which  is  a  master 
piece. 

Besides  the  reason  just  assigned  for  the 
failure  of  the  book  as  a  whole,  at  least 
one  other  is  worth  mentioning.  On  his 
return  from  Boston,  Cooper  had  written 
"  to  let  you  know  how  safely  I  got  out 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  41 
of  Yankee- land !"  If  ever  a  New 
Yorker  of  Quaker  descent,  married  into 
a  Tory  family  with  a  long  French  line 
age,  and  moving  easily  among  the  young 
"  Knickerbocker "  group  of  writers  of 
the  early  twenties,  warmly  sympathised 
with  the  New  Englanders,  it  was  surely 
not  the  author  of  Lionel  Lincoln.  He 
could,  it  is  true,  in  the  abstract  appreci 
ate  their  manly  traits,  as  is  shown  by  The 
Wept  of  Wish-ton- Wish,  and  confirmed 
by  a  few  lines  from  a  letter  dated  the 
year  following  the  publication  of  that 
book.  "  Whatever  else  I  may  think 
of  the  Yankees,"  he  writes  from  Paris 
in  1830,  "they  are  precisely  the  last 
people  on  earth  I  should  attempt  to 
bully  out  of  an  opinion.  A  calmer, 
firmer,  braver  people  does  not  walk  this 
earth.'7  But  the  Puritan  charactexjw^as 
unattractive__to_-4«nl^  andr—ia-— several 
subsecQient  books  ifc-strffered  grave_in- 
jusiice_at  his  hands-.  His  inability  to  do 
the  "Yankees'7  justice  has  been  attrib- 


42  JAMES  FE^IMOEE  COOPER 
uted  to  similarity  in  character.  He 
has  even  been  called^^  puritan  of  the 
Puritans. "  He  did  noty  however,  so 
impress  Eis  contemporaries  j  noj>^a-4he 
details  of  his  daily  life,_aj5Linown  to  us, 
justify  so  striking  a  paradox.  It  may 
be  met  with  his  own  remark  that  "it 
takes  an  aristocrat  to  make  a  true  dem 
ocrat  "  j  and  that  may  be  supplemented 
by  John  Jay's  earlier  saying  that  "pure 
democracy,  like  pure  rum,  easily  pro 
duces  intoxication,  and  with  it  a  thou 
sand  mad  pranks  and  fooleries. "  In 
short,  to  sum  the  matter  up  in  a  word, 
formalism  and  cant  were  so  odious  to 
Cooper  as  often  to  blind  him  to  the 
good  source  of  which  those  abuses  are 
the  degenerate  issue.  Like  some  of  the 
Federalists  who  made  this  country,  he 
was  a  conservative  aristocratic  republi 
can.  The  sinews  and  the  unswerving 
rectitude  of  the  Puritans  were  his,  but 
no  trace  of  their  spiritual  exaltation  nor 
of  their  mystically  fervid  asceticism. 


IV. 

WHILE  making  an  excursion  with  a 
party  of  young  men  to  Saratoga  and 
Lake  George  in  1824,  Cooper  was  urged 
by  Mr.  Stanley,  afterward  Lord  Derby, 
to  lay  the  scene  of  a  story  at  the  curious 
caverns  at  Glens  Falls.  His  most  bril 
liant  and  taking  novel,  written  in  three 
or  four  months,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  had  a  severe  attack  of  fever  brought 
on  by  exposure  to  the  sun,  was  the  result. 
Though  of  course  he  had  read,  as  a  lad, 
Brockden  Brown's  Edgar  Huntley,  with 
its  "incidents  of  Indian  hostility  and 
perils  of  the  Western  wilderness, ' '  yet 
The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  "  would  assur 
edly,"  as  his  daughter  says,  "have  been 
precisely  the  book  it  now  is,  had  Edgar 
Huntley  never  been  written."  It  sprang 
into  instant  popularity,  which  it  main-l 
tains  probably  better  than  any  other  o 
its  author's  books.  And  no  wonder  ;  fo 
its  freshness  and  freedom  so  win  us  at 


44    JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE 

fifteen  that  at  fifty  we  still  enjoy  meet 
ing  again  our  oW.  friends  Hawkeye, 
Uncas,  Chingachgook,  and  Magua,  who 
are  a  spirited  enough  team  to  draw  at  a 
brisk  pace  the  heavy  load  of  the  other 
characters.  Though  the  story,  it  is 
true,  halts  and  right- about- faces  in  the 
middle,  and  the  horrid  slaughter  of  sav 
ages  is  artistically  atrocious,  yet,  despite 
more  or  less  fumbling  of  plot,  and  a  few 
incidents  of  sublimated  sensationalism, 
and  the  error  of  ending  with  a  lugubri 
ous  wail  which  might  better  have  been 
a  triumphal  flourish  of  trumpets,  we 
readily  accept  Parkman's  testimony  to 
the  effect  on  himself  of  this  and  of 
Cooper's  other  early  books.  "The 
scenes  and  characters  of  several  of  his 
jVf  novels,"  Parkman  writes  the  year  after 
the  publication  of  his  own  Pontiac, 
1  i  have  been  so  stamped  by  the  potency 
of  his  art  upon  my  mind  that  I  some 
times  find  it  difficult  to  separate  them 
distinctly  from  the  recollections  of  my 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  45 
own  past  experiences.  I  may  say,  with 
out  exaggeration,  that  Cooper  has  had 
an  influence  in  determining  the  course 
of  my  life  and  pursuits."  This  tribute 
from  the  close  student  of  Indian  life, 
who  by  no  means  approved  of  Cooper's 
braves,  but  held  him  and  Campbell 
responsible  for  the  bogus  warrior  that 
has  since  become  "one  of  the  petty 
nuisances  of  literature,"  is  incidentally 
more  pertinent  than  many  a  prosy  dithy 
ramb  on  the  i c  noble  red  man ' ' ;  for  does 
not  the  fact  that  these  early  stories 
mingled  inseparably  with  Parkmau's 
recollections  of  his  own  experiences  go 
far  to  establish  the  reality  of  Cooper's 
imaginative  sway  ? 

Cooper's  Indians,  in  the  dozen  books 
where  they  appear,  neither  he  nor  any 
one  else  ever  met  in  the  woods.  He  had 
read  the  then  duly  accredited  writers 
on  the  subject,  had  studied  delegates 
from  Western  tribes  who  came  East, 
and  from  childhood  had  imbibed  the 


46  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
Indian  traditions  which  clung  about  Ot- 
sego  Lake  and  its  neighbourhood.  Of 
material  thus  fortuitously  acquired  be 
fore  the  present  era  of  scientific  study 
had  even  dawned  he  constructed  ideal 
ised  types  not  more  remote  from  reality 
than  Scott's  mediae val  knights.  As  a 
restoration  of  a  past  state  of  things,  The 
Last  of  the  Mohicans  bears  a  certain  anal 
ogy  to  Ivanhoe.  Neither  is  historically 
accurate.  As  literature,  however,  the 
one  is  no  more  discredited  by  Bret 
Harte's  travesty  than  the  other  is  by 
Thackeray's  burlesque.  Both  have  of 
late  been  put  to  the  severest  test  a 
classic  has  to  undergo  :  they  have  beej  i 
copiously  annotated  for  use  as  school- 
books.  If  they  pass  unscathed  through 
that  unmerited  ordeal,  then,  indeed, 
may  we  not  call  them  immortal? 

So  widely  accepted  is  Cooper's  con 
ception  of  the  Indian  that  to  question 
the  truth  of  the  delineation  is  to  disquiet 
many  pious  souls  by  seeming  to  imply 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  47 
that  real  Indians  are  degenerate  past 
redemption.  Now,  Cooper  did  present 
some  lofty  specimens  of  manhood  in 
war-paint  and  feathers,  and  everybody 
knows  that  individual  Indians  exist  as 
dignified  and  magnanimous  as  any  of  his 
imagining  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered, 
likewise,  that  he  presented  degraded 
Indians,  and  that  the  chief  of  them  all, 
the  subtle  Magua,  is  as  incarnate  a 
knave  as  lago.  Moreover,  the  best  of 
his  Indian  tales,  being  free  from  po 
lemical  or  didactic  or  other  extraneous 
trammel,  but  written  solely  because 
stories  of  adventure  were  tingling  in  his 
,'plood,  have  escaped  the  imputation  of 
aiming  to  right  the  wrongs  done  the 
race.  Whether  ethnological  research 
verify  his  types,  or  whether  Sims' s  are 
better  likenesses,  matters  little.  More 
to  the  point  is  the  question  of  the  spec 
tacular  and  dramatic  effect  of  the  fig 
ures,  which  any  normal  boy  can  answer 
by  saying  whether  he  would  have  them 
different. 


48    JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 

A  letter  of  Bryant's  to  Dana  at  this 
time  (September  1,  1825)  gives  a  glimpse 
of  Cooper:  "I  saw  Cooper  yesterday. 
He  is  printing  a  novel  entitled  The  Last 
of  the  Mohicans.  The  first  volume  is 
nearly  finished.  You  tell  me  that  I 
must  review  him  next  time  myself. 
Ah,  sir !  he  is  too  sensitive  a  creature 
for  me  to  touch.  He  seems  to  think  his 
own  works  his  own  property,  instead  of 
being  the  property  of  the  public,  to 
whom  he  has  given  them ;  and  it  is 
almost  as  difficult  to  praise  or  blame 
them  in  the  right  place  as  it  was  to 
praise  or  blame  Goldsmith  properly  in 
the  presence  of  Johnson." 

From  Broadway  the  Coopers  had 
moved  to  Beach  Street,  and  thence  to 
Greenwich  Street.  In  Beach  Street  the 
first  son,  Fenimore,  had  died  j  and  there 
Paul,  the  second  son,  had  been  born. 
The  family  were  looking  forward  to  a 
trip  to  Europe,  and  were  diligently 
studying  French  and  Spanish.  In  the 


JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE   49 

spring  of  1826  Cooper  followed  to  Wash 
ington  a  deputation  of  Indians,  mostly 
Pawnees  and  Sioux,  in  whom  he  had  be 
come  interested  during  their  visit  to  New 
York.  He  was  studying  them  with  an 
eye  to  his  next  novel,  which  was  begun 
in  New  York  and  finished  in  Paris. 
One  of  these  chiefs,  described  as  "  a  very 
fine  specimen  of  a  warrior,  a  remark 
able  man  in  every  way,"  may  have  been 
the  model  for  Hard- Heart,  one  of  the 
most  pleasing  of  his  minor  characters. 
Though  not  true  as  a  study  of  a  region 
which  the  author  had  never  seen,  The 
Prairie  has  qualities  which  place  it  high 
among  novels  of  adventure.  Through 
it  runs  a  strain  of  poetic  feeling  for  the 
vague  mystery  of  unlimited  expanse,  and 
it  has  quiet  power  which  grows  more 
impressive  on  a  second  or  third  reading. 
The  aged  trapper  is  a  nobly  pathetic 
figure,  finely  contrasted,  as  Mr.  Louns- 
bury  points  out,  with  the  squatter.  A 
number  of  years  after  the  publication  of 


50  JAMES  FESTIMOBE  COOPER 
the  book,  Cooper  gives  Morse  a  divert 
ing  account  of  having  been  pursued 
from  Brussels  to  Liege  by  a  celebrated 
animal  painter  who  wanted  to  make  a 
portrait  of  him.  i  i  His  gusto  for  natural 
subjects  is  strong,  and  his  favourite 
among  all  my  books  is  "The  Prairie/ 
which  you  know  is  filled  with  wild 
beasts.  .  .  .  That  picture  of  animal  nat 
ure  had  so  caught  his  fancy,  that  he  fol 
lowed  me  sixty  miles  to  paint  a  sketch." 
During  Cooper's  visit  to  Washington 
the  position  of  minister  to  Sweden  was 
offered  to  him  by  Clay,  the  Secretary  of 
State ;  but  he  declined  it,  accepting  in 
stead  the  consulship  at  Lyons,  which  he 
thought  would  give  him  greater  freedom, 
and  at  the  same  time  serve  as  a  protec 
tion  to  his  family  in  the  event  of  Euro 
pean  complications.  He  appears  never 
to  have  gone  there,  however  j  and  after 
a  while  he  gave  up  the  nominal  post. 
On  his  return  to  New  York  his  club  gave 
him  a  farewell  dinner,  where  he  said 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  51 
that  lie  meant  to  write  a  history  of  the 
United  States  navy,  and  where  Chancel 
lor  Kent  toasted  the  "  genius  which  has 
rendered  our  native  soil  classic  ground, 
and  given  to  our  early  history  the  en 
chantment  of  fiction."  When  he  sailed 
with  his  family  on  board  the  Hudson,  on 
June  1,  1826,  for  a  voyage  of  five  weeks 
to  Cowes,  he  was  apparently  ruler  of 
his  destiny. 


V. 

AFTER  a  delightful  week  in  the  Isle 
bf  Wight,  he  went  up  to  London  on 
business  with  his  publisher,  leaving  his 
family  at  Southampton,  where  he  pres 
ently  rejoined  them  and  crossed  to 
France.  Stopping  at  Bouen,  he  bought 
a  roomy  travelling  carriage,  in  which 
they  made  the  rest  of  the  journey  to 
Paris.  They  passed  the  following  year 
and  a  half  in  and  about  Paris,  establish 
ing  themselves  in  the  spring  of  1827  at 
St.  Ouen,  where  he  wrote  The  Bed 
Rover.  As  every  one  may  fairly  be 
credited  with  having  read  that  live 
book,  no  remarks  on  it  are  needed  here 
beyond  a  couple  of  entries,  perhaps  not 
universally  known,  in  Scott's  Journal 
for  January,  1828:  "I  read  Cooper's 
new  novel,  The  Red  Rover;  the  cur 
rent  of  it  rolls  entirely  upon  the  ocean. 
Something  there  is  too  much  of  nautical 
language  ;  in  fact,  it  overpowers  every- 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  53 
thing  else.  .  .  .  He  has  much  genius,  a 
powerful  conception  of  character,  and 
force  of  execution.  The  same  ideas,  I 
see,  recur  upon  him  that  haunt  other 
folks.  The  graceful  form  of  the  spars, 
and  the  tracery  of  the  ropes  and  cordage 
against  the  sky,  is  too  often  dwelt  upon." 
Later  in  the  month  he  writes  :  "I  have 
read  Cooper's  Prairie,  better,  I  think, 
than  his  Red  Rover,  in  which  you 
never  get  foot  on  shore,  and  to  under 
stand  entirely  the  incidents  of  the 
story  it  requires  too  much  knowledge  of 
nautical  language.  It  is  very  clever, 
though. ' ' 

The  Red  Rover  was  the  last  novel 
that  added  to  Cooper's  fame  until  The 
Pathfinder  appeared  a  dozen  years 
later ;  and  much  that  he  wrote  and  did 
in  the  interval  diminished  his  reputa 
tion.  At  this  point,  therefore,  where 
his  position  was  permanently  determined 
by  six  of  the  eight  books  published  in 
his  first  and  most  prosperous  period  of 


54    JAMES  FEKIMORE  COOPER 
authorship,   a  slight   indication   of  his 
distinctive  traits  as  a  writer  finds  its 
place. 

Detailed  discussion  of  style  would  here 
be  superfluous ;  for,  as  style  was  the 
least  of  Cooper's  preoccupations  in  writ 
ing,  so  it  is  the  last  thing  one  thinks  of 
in  reading  him.  Still,  so  many  gratui 
tous  slurs  have  been  cast  on  his  English, 
so  many  well-worn  charges  have  been 
brought,  which  to  particularise  were 
trite  and  tedious,  that  it  becomes  neces 
sary  to  insist  rather  on  the  virtues  which 
equally  exist  in  his  writing.  All  that  is 
needful  for  clearness  may  be  briefly 
stated.  His  style  is  said  to  be,  in  gen 
eral,  commonplace,  careless,  and  prolix, 
frequently  lumbering  and  involved. 
Especially  in  scenes  of  what  is  conven 
tionally  termed  polite  society  it  doubt 
less  misses  the  mark.  The  narrative, 
moreover,  sometimes  lags  so  that  the 
listless  reader  is  disposed  to  get  behind 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER   55 

and  push.  But  when  the  story  is  fairly 
going,  on  the  waves  or  in  the  woods,  the 
style  for  the  time  rises  to  the  occasion, 
and  often  for  a  stretch  of  fifty  pages  or 
more  is  suitable,  adequate,  unpreten 
tious,  and  free  from  mannerism.  Who 
ever  questions  its  efficiency  for  its  purpose 
may  open  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  at  the 
description  of  the  falls,  or  may  read 
again  the  account  of  the  battle  of  Bun 
ker  Hill  in  Lionel  Lincoln,  or  the  advent 
ures  of  the  sleighing  party  in  Satanstoe, 
or  the  famous  fifth  chapter  of  The  Pilot. 
That  chapter,  the  first  in  fiction  to  show 
that  the  master  of  the  sea  tale  had  come 
into  the  world,  is  unsurpassed  in  the  liter 
ature  of  the  sea.  Its  effect,  acknowl 
edged  by  all  the  critics  who  mention  it, 
has  been  felt  by  every  one  of  the  million 
boys  whom  it  has  enthralled  in  the  last 
three-quarters  of  a  century.  The  man 
who  wrote  it  made  alive  as  never  before 
the  ship  and  the  element  with  which  she 
battled,  and  in  some  degree  gave  sem- 


56    JAMES  FENTMORE  COOPER 

blance  of  life  to  those  aboard  her.  How, 
unless  by  instinctively  right  choice  and 
arrangement  of  words  ? 

Cooper's  supreme  power  in  depicting 
the  brooding  of  the  weather  is  per 
fectly  shown  by  a  short  passage  in  a 
later  chapter  of  The  Pilot,  where,  in 
reply  to  Tom's  prediction  of  a  storm, 
Barnstable  says  :  "  <  Your  prophecy  is 
idle,  this  time,  Master  Coffin ;  every 
thing  looks  like  a  dead  calm.  This 
swell  is  what  is  left  from  the  last  blow  ; 
the  mist  overhead  is  nothing  but  the 
nightly  fog,  and  you  can  see,  with  your 
own  eyes,  that  it  is  driving  seaward  j 
even  this  land- breeze  is  nothing  but  the 
air  of  the  ground  mixing  with  that  of 
the  ocean  ;  it  is  heavy  with  dew  and  fog, 
but  it's  as  sluggish  as  a  Dutch  galliot.' 

u'Ay,  sir,  it  is  damp,  and  there  is 
little  of  it,'  rejoined  Tom  5  'but  as  it 
comes  only  from  the  shore,  so  it  never 
goes  far  on  the  water.  It  is  hard  to 
learn  the  true  signs  of  the  weather, 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPEE  57 
Captain  Barnstable,  and  none  get  to 
know  them  well,  but  such  as  study  little 
else,  or  feel  but  little  else.  There  is  only 
One  who  can  see  the  winds  of  heaven, 
or  who  can  tell  when  a  hurricane  is  to 
begin,  or  where  it  will  end.  Still,  a 
man  isn't  like  a  whale  or  a  porpoise, 
that  takes  the  air  in  his  nostrils,  but 
never  knows  whether  it  is  a  south-easter 
or  a  north-wester  that  he  feeds  upon. 
Look,  broad- off  to  leeward,  sir  ;  see  the 
streak  of  clear  sky  shining  under  the 
mists  5  take  an  old  sea-faring  man's  word 
for  it,  Captain  Bamstable,  that  when 
ever  the  light  shines  out  of  the  heavens 
in  that  fashion,  'tis  never  done  for 
nothing  ;  besides,  the  sun  set  in  a  dark 
bank  of  clouds,  and  the  little  moon  we 
had  was  dry  and  windy. ' ' ' 

The  quality  of  this  English  may  be 
tested  by  comparison  with  De  Faucon- 
pret's  translation  into  French,  which, 
though  not  far  wrong  as  a  translation, 
somehow  manages  to  destroy  the  savour 


58    JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPEK 

of  the  salt.  In  the  characteristically 
direct,  simple,  idiomatic  original  every 
word  tells,  and  helps  to  produce  the 
vague  foreboding  which  is  justified  by 
the  wreck  of  the  Ariel.  The  passage  is  as 
difficult  to  phrase  differently  as  one  of 
Stevenson's  nicely  adjusted  paragraphs. 
Were  all  Cooper's  pages  equal  to  that, 
he  would  be  called  a  master  of  English. 
In  description  of  nature,  afloat  and 
ashore,  the  good  qualities  of  his  style  al 
most  invariably  predominate.  His  vol 
umes  of  travel  are  so  picturesque  and 
entertaining  as  to  lead  a  discriminating 
critic  to  pronounce  them  "  among  the 
best  of  their  kind. ' '  His  familiar  letters 
of  friendship  or  affection  have  colloquial 
ease  and  graphic  lightness.  The  words  of 
a  few  of  his  characters  —  Harvey  Birch, 
Tom  Coffin,  Leather-Stocking  —  are  life 
like.  In  short,  where  he  feels  at  home 
with  his  subject,  the  style  responds 
without  apparent  effort  to  a  natural 
impulse.  On  the  other  hand,  when  he 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  59 
tries  to  produce  an  effect  with  thankless 
or  uncongenial  material,  the  style  is 
inert;  for  he  wrote  precipitately,  and 
spurned  revision. 

The  gist  of  the  matter  is  that  Cooper 
was  not  a  verbal  artist,  and  that  his  en 
dowment  of  what  we  are  pleased  to  call 
literary  conscience  was  scant.  With  no 
special  training  as  a  writer,  when,  at 
thirty  or  thereabout,  it  accidentally 
came  into  his  head  to  try  his  hand  at  a 
novel,  he  struck  boldly  out,  not  partic 
ularly  considering  whither.  Some  of 
his  early  books,  written  for  his  own 
pleasure,  brought  him  popularity  which 
surprised  no  one  more  than  himself. 
The  art  of  writing  engaged  his  attention 
far  less  than  the  panorama  and  the 
story.  Eobust  and  impetuous,  he  dis 
dained  details  of  style  and  academic 
standards.  To  apply  to  him  academic 
standards  is  as  if  one  should  inquire 
whether  Hard  -  Heart's  horsemanship 
conforms  to  the  rules  of  the  riding- 


60  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
school  j  for  nobody  cares.  It  is  to  miss 
the  point  that,  heaven  knows  how  or 
why,  he  struck  — Heaven  be  praised !  — 
a  new  trail  which,  admitting  all  the 
shortcomings  in  style  that  any  one  may 
choose  to  allege,  the  world  is  not  yet 
weary  of  following.  The  indisputable, 
the  essential  fact  is  that,  entering  un 
heralded  and  possessing  the  land,  he 
founded  a  realm,  and  became  by  divine 
right  king  of  American  fiction.  Scott, 
with  whom  he  is  often  idly,  though  per 
haps  inevitably,  compared,  had  behind 
him  generations  of  literary  association 
in  a  country  which  teemed  with  throng 
ing  suggestion  of  romance,  and  which 
was  peopled  by  an  eager  audience. 
The  American  writers  of  that  early  time 
were,  as  Bayard  Taylor  said,  "even  in 
advance  of  their  welcome,  and  created 
their  own  audiences."  To  no  such  heri 
tage  as  Scott's  was  Cooper  born.  Alone 
he  penetrated  and  permeated  the  literary 
wilderness,  blazing  paths  for  those  who 


JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPER  61 
should  come  after.  To  disparage  Ms 
work  on  the  score  of  lack  of  technical 
finish  is  to  subordinate  primary  con 
siderations  to  secondary,  and  to  prove 
one's  self  dull  to  that  rarest  of  endow 
ments,  that  precious  literary  prize  — 
originality. 

It  was  during  Cooper's  first  residence 


him.  Cooper's  detailed  account  of  their 
meetings,  and  of  his  efforts  to  secure  for 
Scott  pecuniary  compensation  in  this 
country,  is  generally  known  ;  and  Scott 
mentions  the  subject  in  his  Journal. 
Scott's  only  recorded  personal  impres 
sion  of  Cooper  is  in  these  words  :  "This 
man,  who  has  shown  so  much  genius, 
has  a  good  deal  of  the  manner,  or  want 
of  manner,  peculiar  to  his  countrymen." 
An  unlucky  misprint  in  Lockhart's  Life 
of  Scott  made  this  innocent  remark  offen 
sive  by  the  accidental  addition  of  an  s 
to  the  word  manner.  When  Cooper  came 


62  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
to  review  Lockhart's  work  for  the  Knick 
erbocker  Magazine  in  1838,  he  properly 
resented  being  thus  curtly  set  down  as  a 
rude  boor  from  the  bookless  wilds.  The 
slur  cast  on  himself  and  his  country  by 
the  man  whom  he  had  spoken  of  as  his 
t( sovereign,"  with  whom  his  relations 
had  been  cordial,  and  in  whose  behalf 
he  had  been  fruitlessly  zealous,  unques 
tionably  sharpened  the  edge  of  some 
criticisms  in  that  review  for  which  he 
was  violently  assailed  in  England.  3sTot 
until  the  publication  of  the  Journal  in 
its  authentic  form,  many  years  too  lafe 
to  repair  the  damage  done,  was  Scott's 
sentence  printed  as  he  wrote  it. 

During  the  four  months  that  Cooper 
passed  in  London,  in  1828,  he  saw  many 
of  the  interesting  persons  of  the  day,  of 
whom  he  tells  sundry  entertaining  anec 
dotes.  He  took  a  small  house  in  St. 
James's  Place.  Rogers,  his  near  neigh 
bour,  was  among  the  first  to  call  on  him, 
and  had  him  frequently  to  breakfast, 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  63 
where  he  met  Lord  John  Eussell,  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  and  Carey,  the  trans 
lator  of  Dante.  He  says  of  Eogers, 
whom  he  liked,  that  "few  men  have  a 
more  pleasant  way  of  saying  pleasant 
things "  j  and  he  calls  Sir  James  "the 
best  talker  I  ever  heard, "  and  "the 
only  man  I  have  yet  met  in  England 
who  appears  to  have  any  clear  and  defi 
nite  notions  of  us."  He  was  soon  dining 
at  Holland  House,  and  meeting  the  lead 
ing  Whigs,  of  whom  Lord  Grey  seemed 
to  him  "the  man  of  the  most  character 
in  his  set,  though  he  betrayed  it  quietly, 
naturally,  and,  as  it  were,  as  if  he  could 
not  help  it. ' '  He  saw  something  of  Cole 
ridge,  "a  picture  of  green  old  age,— 
ruddy,  solid,  and  with  a  head  as  white 
as  snow."  Scott,  whom  he  met  several 
times,  he  speaks  of  on  one  occasion  as 
having  "a  good  stately  chat  with  Mrs. 
Siddons,  who  dialogued  with  him  in  a 
very  Shaksperian  manner."  Enough 
has  been  quoted  from  the  book  on  Eng- 


64  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
land,  published  four  years  after  his  re 
turn  to  America,  to  show  that  he  was  a 
keen  casual  observer.  He  was  also  a 
minute  critic  of  social  and  national 
traits,  and  an  aggressive  patriot,  stirred 
to  emphatic  utterance  by  disparagement 
of  his  country.  He  accordingly  wrote 
Notions  of  the  Americans;  Picked  up  by 
a  Travelling  Bachelor,  a  somewhat  pon 
derous  defence  of  American  institutions 
against  the  attacks  on  them  then  preva 
lent  in  Europe.  Though  calm  in  tone 
and  acute  in  dealing  with  facts  of  which 
he  had  wide  and  accurate  knowledge, 
the  book,  meant  to  enlighten  and  to  clear 
away  misapprehension,  had  the  effect  of 
drawing  on  its  author  a  fire  of  criticism 
both  at  home  and  abroad.  Its  publica 
tion,  in  the  same  year  with  The  Red 
Rover,  marks  the  beginning  of  the  wave 
of  personal  unpopularity  which  subse 
quently  swept  over  him. 

Though  especially  well  treated  in  Eng 
land,  he  found  himself  ill  at  ease  with 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  65 
the  people,  and  was  glad  to  escape  in 
June  to  more  congenial  countries.  First 
lie  went  to  Holland,  and,  .passing  through 
Belgium,  returned  to  Paris.  Thence  he 
went  to_  Switzerland,  where  he  hired  a 
house  near  Berne.  Crossing  the  Simplon 
in  October,  he  passed  nine  months  in 
Tuscany.  "In  July,  1829,  the  whole 
family,'7  he  writes,  "went  to  Leghorn, 
where  I  chartered  a  felucca  and  sailed 
for  Naples,  touching  at  Elba,  Piombino, 
Civita  Yecchia,  and  one  or  two  of  the 
small  islands.  "We  were  six  days  on 
board,  and  were  somewhat  bitten  by 
fleas.  Oh  Napoli !  glorious,  sunny, 
balmy  Napoli !  We  staid  five  months 
at  Naples,  or  near  it,  and  in  December 
went  up  to  Borne."  Leaving  Eome  in 
April,  he  passed  a  month  at  Venice,  and 
in  June  went,  by  way  of  the  Tyrol,  to 
Dresden.  "Here  we  staid,"  he  writes 
in  September,  1830,  "until  the  Revolu 
tion  broke  out  in  Paris,  when  I  came  on 
post,  and  Mrs.  Cooper  followed  with  the 


66  JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPER 

children  at  her  leisure.  We  are  now 
fixed  for  six  months.  It  is  my  present 
intention  to  return  home  in  about  a  year, 
though  political  events  may  induce  me 
to  alter  my  plans. "  Delight  in  the 
scenery  of  Switzerland,  and  especially 
in  the  refinement  of  natural  beauty  in 
Italy,  pervades  the  Sketches  of  Switzer 
land  and  Gleanings  in  Europe,  which  tell 
in  detail  the  experiences  of  the  two 
years  of  travel.  Incidentally  containing 
much  tart  criticism  of  things  American 
which  enraged  some  of  his  sensitive 
countrymen,  those  books  are  largely  a 
record,  in  the  form  of  letters  to  friends 
at  home,  of  his  fresh  impressions  of  what 
he  saw.  Of  the  witchery  of  Italy,  the 
land  he  loved  next  to  his  own,  he  speaks 
with  contagious  joy  and  stimulating  in 
telligence.  With  the  possible  exception 
of  a  few  scenes  at  sea,  some  of  the  Italian 
descriptions  are  as  spontaneously  vital 
as  anything  that  he  wrote. 

At    La   Lorraine,    his    country-house 


JAMES  FEMMOBE  COOPEE    67 

near  Berne,  from  which  he  used  to  watch 
the  glaciers  of  the  Oberland  Alps  in  the 
setting  sun,  The  Wept  of  Wish-ton- Wish 
was  begun ;  but  owing  to  difficulties  in 
getting  a  printer,  it  was  not  published 
until  he  had  been  for  some  time  in  Flor 
ence.  That  was  followed  by  The  Water 
Witch,  which  was  partly  written  at  the 
Casa  Tasso,  on  the  cliffs  of  Sorrento,  was 
condemned  by  the  censor  at  Eome  be 
cause  it  contained  the  words,  "Borne  it 
self  is  only  to  be  traced  by  fallen  temples 
and  buried  columns, "  and  was  event 
ually  published  in  Dresden.  Next  came 
The  Bravo ,  "written  to  martial  music " 
in  Paris,  in  1830,  and  followed  by  The 
Heidenmauer  and  The  Headsman.  These 
three  "novels  with  a  purpose,"  seeking 
to  teach  the  world  the  superiority  of  a 
popular  government  to  an  oligarchy, 
naturally  incurred  (as  didactic  fiction 
has  a  way  of  doing)  criticism  based 
rather  on  the  merits  of  the  doctrine  in 
culcated  than  on  their  own.  Again  and 


68    JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPEE 

again  Cooper  failed  when  he  essayed  to 
tell  his  readers  what  he  thought  they 
ought  to  be  told,  and  succeeded  when  he 
had  in  view  only  the  story  which  fired 
his  own  imagination.  As  has  often  been 
said  in  one  form  or  another,  his  early 
novels  taught  Europe  more  about  Amer 
ica  than  Europe  had  ever  before  learned, 
whereas  his  dissertations  on  American 
matters  were  apt  to  lead  only  to  befog 
ging  controversy.  The  Bravo,  which 
was  far  better  received  in  France  and 
Germany  than  at  home,  has,  it  is  true, 
considerable  merit  ;  so  has  The  Heads 
man  ;  but  neither  has  the  special  quali 
ties  which  set  some  half-dozen  of  his 
novels  in  a  class  apart,  unmatched. 

In  whatever  country  Cooper  happened 
to  be,  he  sedulously  studied  current 
events  j  and  sometimes  he  made  shrewd 
political  forecasts  —  as,  for  instance,  of 
the  unification  of  Italy,  which  as  early 
as  1829  he  thought  "inevitable,  though 
the  means  by  which  it  is  to  be  effected 


JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPER   69 

are  still  hidden. "  The  turmoil  in  Paris 
had,  accordingly,  attracted  him  at  once 
to  the  scene  of  action,  where  he  might 
have  a  near  view  of  the  Eevolution  of 
July.  For  a  while  he  lived  in  the  rue 
d'Aguesseau,  and  then  across  the  river 
at  59  rue  St.  Dominique  until  his  return 
to  America. 

Several  features  of  Cooper's  second 
residence  in  Paris  were  wholly  satisfac 
tory.  Lafayette,  whom  he  had  known 
in  New  York  in  1824,  when  he  was  ac 
tive  in  getting  up  the  famous  ball  at 
Castle  Garden  in  honour  of  the  "  nation's 
guest,"  he  esteemed  as  a  friend  of  liberty 
and  of  America.  In  Paris,  where  La 
fayette  was  now  the  centre  of  the  Ameri 
can  circle,  he  saw  him  constantly  and 
intimately.  That  true  American,  Ho 
ratio  Greenough,  who  had  basked  in  the 
hospitable  warmth  of  Cooper's  wood 
fires  in  Florence,  after  a  while  came  to 
Paris  to  make  a  bust  of  Lafayette.  Well 
might  Greenough  call  Cooper  "a  father 


70    JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER 

to  me  in  kindness"  ;  for  it  was  Cooper's 
order  for  the  marble  group  of  the  Chant 
ing  Cherubs,  the  "  first  work  of  the  kind," 
as  Cooper  wrote  from  Dresden,  "  which 
has  come  from  an  American  chisel/ ' 
that  eventually  led  to  Greenough's 
making  the  statue  of  Washington.  Sam 
uel  Gridley  Howe,  already  active  in  good 
works,  whom  Sydney  Smith,  on  hearing 
the  story  of  Laura  Bridgman,  likened  to 
Pygmalion,  was  in  Paris  for  a  time, 
studying  medicine.  In  1832  Nathaniel 
Parker  Willis  was  making  pencil  sketches 
of  the  ravening  cholera,  breakfasting 
with  Cooper,  and  strolling  with  him  in 
the  Garden  of  the  Tuileries.  ^[orse. wa§, 
painting  at  the  Louvre,  helping  Cooper 
in  the  choice  of  pictures  to  buy,  taking 
long  afternoon  walks  with  him,  and  a 
little  later  hinting  to  him  the  possibility 
of  stringing  the  telegraphic  wire.  ' '  We 
were  in  daily,  almost  hourly,  inter 
course,"  writes  Morse  some  twenty  years 
afterward,  "while  in  Paris  during  the 


JAMES  FEXIMOEE  COOPEE  71 
eventful  years  of  1831,  1832.  I  never 
met  with  a  more  sincere,  warm-hearted, 
constant  friend.  No  man  came  nearer 
to  the  ideal  I  had  formed  of  a  truly 
high-minded  man."  Their  relations 
were,  in  fact,  peculiarly  warm  and  close. 
Another  man  of  note,  between  whom 
and  Cooper  had  sprung  up  an  attach 
ment  as  they  scoured  the  Eoman  Cam- 
pagna  together,  was  Mickiewicz,  the 
Polish  poet  and  patriot,  the  insurrection 
of  whose  countrymen,  following  soon 
after  the  Eevolution  in  France,  enlisted 
the  impassioned  interest  of  the  American 
champion  of  freedom.  As  an  active 
member  of  the  American  committee  for 
the  relief  of  the  suffering  Poles,  Cooper 
by  public  speaking  and  by  writing  zeal 
ously  aided  the  cause  of  the  insurgents. 
On  all  questions  involving  natural 
rights,  his  heart  and  his  head  concurred. 
In  1830  he  writes  to  a  friend  at  home 
about  nullification  :  "The  present  state 
of  feeling  in  South  Carolina  is  well 


72  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
known  to  me,  and  has  given  me  much 
pain.  From  very  early  life,  I  have  had 
much  intercourse  with  gentlemen  of  your 
state,  and  I  have  always  felt  an  attach 
ment  for  its  people.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  avoid  seeing  that  an  evil  spirit  is  at 
work  among  them  just  now."  An  ex 
tremely  minute  examination  of  the  whole 
matter  follows,  concluding  in  this  mas 
culine  language  :  i  i  These  truths  are  so 
clear  and  imposing,  that  I  am  tempted 
to  think  they  [the  nullifiers]  are  only 
bullying,  which  is  both  an  ill-advised 
and  an  unworthy  attempt.  Indeed,  the 
whole  proceedings  in  Carolina,  beyond 
that  part  which  has  certainly  a  good  deal 
of  foundation  in  right,  are  too  much 
characterised  by  passion  to  carry  any 
confidence  to  men  of  cool  heads.  They 
natter  themselves  they  are  imitating 
their  fathers,  but  nothing  can  be  more 
unlike.  Their  fathers  were  cool  and 
dignified  and  conciliatory,  but  these 
Hotspurs  begin  with  talking  about 


JAMES  FEtflMOKE  COOPEE  73 
'leaden  pills/  and  by  using  other  bra 
vadoes.  I  believe  all  freemen  are  brave, 
but  when  a  handful  of  them  use  this  sort 
of  language  to  millions,  they  give  some 
reason  to  distrust  their  possessing  that 
very  thought  which  is  the  foundation 
of  all  durable  courage.  To  conclude,  I 
think  they  are  acting  in  the  very  worst 
taste,  and  in  the  very  worst  policy,  too, 
in  a  cause  that  is  more  than  half  right. 
.  .  .  Knowing  your  own  moderation, 
I  am  persuaded  you  will  agree  with 
me  that  bad  taste,  as  well  as  indiscretion, 
has  had  too  much  influence  of  late  over 
some  men  that  we  both  esteem,  for  their 
ordinary  habits  and  principles.  I  com 
mit  them  to  the  Gods." 

Eegard  for  Lafayette  drew  Cooper,  in 
1831,  into  what  is  known  as  the  u  Ex 
penses'  Controversy,'7  which  it  is  neces 
sary  to  mention,  not  for  its  own  sake, 
but  because  its  results  affected  his  life. 
As  briefly  as  possible,  the  bare  facts,  con 
densed  from  Lounsbury,  are  these.  A 


74    JAMES  FEKEMORE  COOPER 

financial  discussion  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  had  brought  from  the  editor 
of  the  Revue  Britannique  an  article  to 
prove  that  a  limited  monarchy  costs  less 
than  a  republic.  It  was  pointed  out  to 
Cooper  that  this  was  an  attack  on  his 
friend  Lafayette,  who  held  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  to  be  the 
cheapest  known.  He  accordingly  pub 
lished  a  pamphlet  which  the  Revue  Brit 
annique  answered  in  an  article  to  which 
he  replied  in  letters  to  the  National. 
Further  controversy  ensued,  in  which 
Cooper's  opponent  was  an  American, 
whose  statements  gained  factitious  au- 
thoritativeness  with  foreigners  from  his 
having  once  been  charge  d'affaires  at  St. 
Petersburg,  and  his  being  afterward 
appointed  to  the  same  post  at  Paris. 
Meanwhile  the  Department  of  State  at 
Washington  had  issued  a  circular  re 
questing  of  local  authorities  informa 
tion  regarding  public  expenditure.  In 
a  letter  written  at  Vevey  in  the  autumn 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  75 
of  1832,  published  in  the  Philadelphia 
National  Gazette,  and  widely  circulated, 
Cooper  protested  so  stoutly  against 
such  a  confusion  of  the  subject  that 
the  matter  dropped.  Notoriety,  how 
ever,  attached  to  him  for  his  part  in  the 
contest.  As  usual,  he  was  misrepre 
sented  by  a  portion  of  the  press,  and 
was  charged  by  certain  vociferous  per 
sons  with  "  flouting  his  Americanism 
throughout  Europe, ' '  and  with  commit 
ting  various  other  indiscretions. 

Had  he  carried  out  his  original  plan 
of  returning  home  in  1831,  he  would 
have  been  spared  the  disenchantment 
and  discouragement  resulting  from  this 
unfortunate  episode.  During  his  second 
visit  to  Switzerland  he  had  written : 
"A  few  toad-eaters  and  court  butter 
flies  excepted,  I  do  not  believe  there 
is  a  man  in  all  America  who  could  dwell 
five  years  in  any  country  in  Europe, 
without  being  made  sensible  of  the  vast 
superiority  of  his  own  free  institutions 


76  JAMES  FENIMOEB  COOPER 
over  those  of  every  other  Christian  na 
tion."  That  feeling  never  changed. 
Yet  the  lack  of  appreciation  of  it  so 
turned  awry  his  generous  impulses  that 
when  he  finally  left  Europe  after  an 
absence  of  almost  seven  years  and  a 
half,  he  had  firmly  resolved  to  lay 
down  the  pen. 


VI. 

THE  next  few  winters  lie  passed  in 
New  York,  and  the  summers  at  beauti 
ful  Cooperstown.  Otsego  Hall  was 
renovated  according  to  designs  made  by 
Morse,  and  became  eventually  his  per 
manent  residence.  "The  Hall/7  he 
writes  in  1835,  "is  composite  enough, 
Heaven  knows,  being  a  mongrel  of  the 
Grecian  and  the  Gothic  orders.  Who 
has  told  you  anything  about  it?  It  is 
a  good  substantial  house,  and,  on  the 
whole,  I  think  a  good-looking  house, 
though  there  are  striking  defects.  It  is 
not  an  easy  matter  to  'raise  upon'  a 
house,  or  a  ship,  and  preserve  its  good 
looks.  My  hall,  however,  is  the  admi 
ration  of  all  the  mountaineers.  It  is 
near  fifty  feet  long,  twenty-four  wide, 
and  fifteen  high.  These  are  no  marvels 
for  your  traveller,  but  for  the  interior  of 
New  York  they  are.  The  only  change 
in  it,  since  my  boyhood,  however,  is  in 


78  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
the  height.  I  have  raised  the  ceiling 
three  feet,  and  now  regret  it  had  not 
been  ten.  I  have  an  aversion  to  a  room 
under  jury  masts. "  There  he  kept 
open  house  to  his  friends,  cultivated  his 
garden,  grew  melons  and  vegetables, 
planted  hemlocks,  and  assiduously  gath 
ered  material  for  the  forthcoming  his 
tory  of  the  navy.  He  also,  to  his  sorrow, 
became  involved  in  a  series  of  litigations 
which  can  here  be  only  outlined.  The 
subject  can  be  fully  understood  only 
through  laborious  ransacking  of  files  of 
newspapers  long  ago  dead  and  dusty. 
A  few  pages,  however,  will  suffice  to 
show  how  it  all  began,  and  what  came 
of  it,  and  —  more  important  still  —  how 
he  bore  himself  in  the  tempest  which  he 
unloosed  and  finally  quelled.  Through 
out  the  ensuing  trouble  his  acts  must  be 
looked  at,  if  not  from  his  point  of  view, 
at  least  in  the  light  of  his  character. 

"I  see  Cooper  occasionally  in  his  visits 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  79 
to  town,  for  he  lives  iri  the  country.  He 
is  a  restless  creature,  and  does  not  seem 
well  satisfied  with  his  position  in  this 
country,  though  his  great  reputation,  his 
handsome  fortune,  his  fine  health,  and 
his  very  amiable  family  ought  to  make 
him  so. 7  7  Bryant,  writing  thus  to  Dana 
at  the  end  of  February,  1837,  was  prob 
ably  not  fully  cognisant  of  all  that  had 
taken  place  in  Cooper's  life  during  the 
three  or  four  years  preceding,  and  was 
certainly  not  in  his  confidence  regarding 
all  his  thoughts  and  feelings. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Cooper  had  stayed 
abroad  too  long,  and  had  come  home  to 
a  country  that  he  did  not  know  and  that 
did  not  know  him  ;  for  both  had  changed 
in  the  interval.  He  had  left  the  stage 
coach,  and  had  returned  to  the  railway  ; 
he  had  left  in  the  White  House  John 
Quincy  Adams,  the  last  President  who 
inherited  Federalist  traditions,  and  had 
found  him  succeeded  by  Jackson  ;  he 
had  left  a  society  in  which  the  aristo- 


80  JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE 
cratic  ideal  had  not  lost  its  prestige,  and 
had  come  back  to  see  a  younger  genera 
tion,  regardless  of  the  past,  pressing 
tumultuously  in  every  direction  for  new 
opportunities  and  new  outlets  for  its 
energy,  and  apparently  striving  toward 
no  definite  goal  except  the  dollar.  With 
this  young  America  he  was  not  in  sym 
pathy;  for  his  tastes  had  been  developed 
by  civilisations  which  were  mature  be 
fore  ours  was  dreamed  of,  and  his  heart 
turned  fondly  to  the  past.  He  had  an 
Horatian  hatred  of  the  mediocrity  which 
is  a  foe  to  excellence,  and  which  then 
obscured  that  future  which  has  become 
the  past  we  are  so  proud  of.  Not  that 
he  was  not  always  proud  of  his  country  : 
no  one  ever  loved  it  more  dearly.  For 
that  very  reason  he  deprecated  the  de 
generacy  resulting  from  the  commercial 
spirit  of  the  day,  and  he  unwisely  took 
it  on  himself  to  lecture  his  countrymen 
on  their  shortcomings.  We  have  always 
been  absurdly  sensitive  about  that  sort 


JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE  81 
of  thing,  morbidly  eager  to  hear  what 
any  stray  tourist  may  have  to  say  of  us, 
and  ready  to  bridle  up  at  the  slightest 
uncomplimentary  suggestion.  It  is  a 
national  trait.  Mr.  Archer  calls  it  "  a 
psychological  necessity,  deep  rooted  in 
history  and  social  conditions."  Be  that 
as  it  may,  Miss  Martineau,  Mrs.  Trollope, 
Marryat,  and  Dickens  (to  mention  only 
conspicuous  names)  all  angered  us  by 
their  comments,  and  are  not  yet  for 
given.  But  they  were  British,  and  our 
natural  enemies.  Cooper's  crime  was 
treason.  For  had  he  not  attacked 
the  abuses  of  that  "  precious  pest  and 
necessary  mischief,"  the  " prostituted 
companion  of  liberty,  and  somehow  or 
other,  we  know  not  how,  its  efficient 
auxiliary,"  as  Fisher  Ames  calls  the 
press?  " Each  hour,  as  life  advances," 
Cooper  had  written  in  the  introduction 
to  The  Heidenmauer,  "am  I  made  to  see 
how  capricious  and  vulgar  is  the  im 
mortality  conferred  by  a  newspaper." 


82  JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER 
What  wonder  that  the  retort  should 
have  been,  "The  press  has  built  him 
up:  the  press  shall  pull  him  down"  ! 
American  scenery,  too,  he  belittled,  and 
bewailed  the  departure  of  old-fashioned 
simplicity  from  American  manners.  The 
indiscriminate  laudation  of  everything 
American  drove  him  to  vivacity  of  ex 
pression  about  whatever  impressed  him 
as  crude  or  ungenuine.  "If  it  be  pa 
triotism  to  deem  all  our  geese  swans," 
he  wrote,  "I  am  no  patriot,  nor  ever 
was  ;  for,  of  all  species  of  sentiments,  it 
strikes  me  that  your  ( property  patriot 
ism7  is  the  most  equivocal."  In  the 
thirties,  when  untravelled  and  inexperi 
enced  America  scarcely  understood  the 
meaning  of  the  accounts  of  European 
countries  brought  back  by  the  few 
Americans  who  went  abroad,  that  was 
rank  heresy.  Moreover,  popular  taste  in 
fiction  had  veered.  The  romantic  wave 
had  begun  to  subside  even  before  Scott's 
death,  and  heroes  of  the  Pelhani  stripe 


JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER    83 

had  come  into  fashion.  Thus  several 
causes  worked  together  to  place  Cooper, 
both  as  a  man  and  as  an  author,  in  a 
false  position  ;  and  he  cannot  be  said  to 
have  done  his  utmost  to  counteract  them. 
There  is  pertinence  in  Horatio  Green- 
ough's  picturesque  remark  that  he  "lost 
hold  on  the  American  public  by  rubbing 
down  their  shins  with  brickbats." 

It  is  not  true,  however,  that  he  strutted 
about  with  a  chip  on  his  shoulder,  pick 
ing  a  quarrel  with  whoever  crossed  his 
path.  He  had  said  in  Paris,  in  l&SS^ 
on  the  appearance  of  an  acrimonious 
article  in  an  American  newspaper:  "I 
care  nothing  for  the  criticism,  but  I 
am  not  indifferent  to  the  slander.  If 
these  attacks  on  my  character  should 
be  kept  up  five  years  after  my  return 
to  America,  I  shall  resort  to  the  New 
York  courts  for  protection."  For  five 
years  thereafter  he  acted  with  modera 
tion  under  a  rising  storm  of  calumny. 
When,  in  1837,  it  passed  endurance,  he 


84    JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPEE 

joined  battle,  careless  of  consequences, 
with  all  comers,  and  fought  till  he  had 
cleared  the  field.  Galling  though  his 
words  often  were,  he  did  not  strike  the 
first  blow. 

In  A  Letter  to  His  Countrymen,  pub 
lished  in  1834,  Cooper  injudiciously 
answered  certain  newspaper  criticisms 
on  The  Bravo  and  the  later  novels,  and 
still  more  injudiciously  discussed  the  po 
litical  situation  —  subjects  with  nothing 
in  common.  Caleb  dishing  replied  like 
an  irate  gentleman  to  the  political  part 
of  the  pamphlet;  but  the  Whig  press 
sprang,  with  what  Cooper's  biographer 
calls  a  "howl  of  denunciation,"  at  the 
pamphleteer.  The  Monikins,  an  unread 
able  satirical  novel,  was  published  the 
next  year  ;  and  in  the  three  years  fol 
lowing  came  ten  volumes  of  travel  in 
Switzerland,  France,  England,  and  Italy, 
entertaining  in  parts,  but  irritating  to 
their  first  readers  on  account  of  the 
comments  on  social  and  national  idio- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  85 
syncrasies.  The  book  on  England  seems 
to  have  been  the  one  by  which  its  author 
set  most  store.  "Have  you  read  Eng 
land —  and  if  so  how  do  you  like  it?" 
he  writes  in  the  autumn  of  1837.  < l  They 
tell  me  it  has  made  a  stir  in  London, 
where  I  get  abused  and  read  a  la  Trol- 
lope.  ...  It  ought  to  do  them  good,  but 
whether  it  will  or  not  depends  on  Divine 
grace. ' '  And  later  in  the  same  year,  four 
or  five  months  after  Emerson's  <£.  B.  K. 
oration  which  Holmes  called  "our  intel 
lectual  Declaration  of  Independence," 
he  continues:  "I  am  glad  you  like 
England,  for  I  think  books  of  this  spirit 
much  wanted.  I  am  afraid,  however, 
it  is  not  very  well  received  in  general. 
It  is  in  advance  of  the  country.  .  .  . 
We  must  make  up  our  minds,  I  fear,  to 
live  our  time  as  the  inhabitants  of  a 
mere  colony.  A  century  hence  things 
will  improve,  perhaps,  but  not  in  our 
day."  But  England,  which  appeared  in 
the  year  of  Queen  Victoria's  accession, 


86  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
could  never  have  been  a  timely  publi 
cation;  for,  clever  and  penetrating  and 
true  as  parts  of  it  are,  the  book  as  a 
whole  lacks  amenity,  without  which 
criticism  can  do  little  good.  It  is  cer 
tainly  not  a  production  in  which  either 
nation  can  rejoice  and  be  glad,  but  is 
rather  calculated  to  set  people  by  the 
ears  than  to  save  them  from  their  sins. 
Its  effect  on  the  Quarterly  Eeview  was  to 
make  it  foam  at  the  mouth  in  stupid 
rage.  To  the  Swiss  and  Italian  volumes 
justice  could  be  done  only  by  profuse 
quotation.  Such  an  amalgam  of  excel 
lent  description  and  caustic  animadver 
sion  it  is  not  easy  to  match.  The  de 
scription,  which  may  still  be  read  with 
unmixed  pleasure,  made  no  impression  j 
the  censure,  which  now  is  rather  divert 
ing,  was  thought  pragmatical,  acrid,  and 
insolent. 

These  books  went  far  to  strengthen 
the  hostility  to  Cooper,  which  had  mean 
while  been  precipitated  by  the  Three 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE   87 

Mile  Point  controversy  between  him 
and  a  gang  of  his  fellow-townsmen.  On 
his  return  to  Cooperstown  he  had  found 
that  the  villagers  regarded  as  public 
property  a  point  of  land,  called  Myrtle 
Grove,  which  Judge  Cooper  had  be 
queathed  to  his  descendants  until  1850, 
"then  to  be  inherited  by  the  youngest 
thereof  bearing  my  name."  Though 
willing  to  let  the  people  use  the  place 
for  picnics,  as  they  had  long  been  ac 
customed  to  do,  he  was  determined,  as 
the  last  of  his  father's  executors,  to  "en 
force  the  title  of  the  estate."  He  pub 
lished  a  card  to  that  effect,  warning  the 
public  against  trespassing.  A  meeting 
was  thereupon  called,  at  which  it  was 
resolved  to  hold  his  threat  and  his 
whole  conduct  "  in  perfect  contempt "  j 
to  have  his  books  removed  from  the 
village  library ;  and  to  "denounce  any 
man  as  sycophant,  who  has,  or  shall, 
ask  permission  of  James  F.  Cooper  to 
visit  the  Point  in  question."  There  was 


88  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 
even  a  report  that  it  had  been  resolved 
to  make  a  public  bonfire  of  all  his  works. 
Cooper  had  these  resolutions  printed ; 
and  he  wrote  to  the  Freeman's  Journal, 
the  local  Democratic  newspaper,  two 
defiant  letters,  giving  the  whole  history 
of  the  case,  and  stoutly  defending  the 
village  against  the  charge  that  the  rowdy 
meeting  was  representative. 

This  took  place  in  the  summer  of 
1837.  In  September,  Cooper  thus  refers 
to  the  next  step  in  the  proceedings: 
"The  Point  war  is  over,  I  believe,  all 
but  the  libel  suits.  I  got  the  resolutions 
and  published  them  myself,  with  a  few 
comments,  and  this  has  mortified  them 
not  a  little.  But  the  disgrace  of  our 
democrats  trembling  to  say  what  they 
think  of  their  conduct,  will  last  a  long 
time  in  my  mind. 

"Some  of  the  neighbouring  newspa 
pers  have  attacked  the  villagers,  and  the 
Otsego  Eepublican  makes  feeble  and  in 
significant  answers,  but  the  editor  is  too 


JAMES  EENIMOEE  COOPER  89 
great  an  ass  to  notice.  He  has  never 
dared  to  answer  me,  although  he  talks 
very  prettily  of  my  '  unqualified  hostil 
ity  ! >  the  blackguard,  after  grossly 
libelling  me.  My  letter  made  them  look 
blue,  and  I  believe  the  greater  part 
would  be  glad  to  forget  the  whole  affair. 
One  of  the  few  decent  men  who  were  at 
the  meeting  admitted  to  me  that  its 
statements  were  false,  its  proceedings 
illegal,  indecent  and  outrageous.  In 
truth,  a  grosser  outrage  could  not  well 
have  been  practised. " 

In  writing  later  to  an  officer  who  had 
recently  been  in  command  of  the  West 
India  squadron,  one  who  likewise  re 
ceived  his  share  of  detraction  from  men 
of  coarser  fibre,  Cooper  thus  casually  re 
fers  to  an  element  in  the  matter  which 
constantly  affected  his  own  relations 
with  his  adversaries:  "Do  you  know 
that  you  have  been  had  up  before  a 
meeting  of  gentlemen  (gamblers)  at  Pen- 
sacola,  and  denounced?  This  is  your 


90  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
Three  Mile  Point  affair.  The  sin  was 
refusing  to  associate  with  blackguards,  I 
suppose,  which  is  iny  great  offence,  here. 
In  this  part  of  the  world  it  is  thought 
aristocratic  not  to  frequent  taverns,  and 
lounge  at  corners,  squirting  tobacco 
juice,  and  I  dare  say  it  is  no  better  at 
Pensacola.  One  scamp  is  surprisingly 
like  another  all  over  the  world." 
Cooper,  it  is  clear,  in  all  his  libel  suits 
stood  for  a  social  class.  But,  besides 
the  antipathy  which  he  inspired  on  that 
account,  the  political  differences  be 
tween  him  and  his  adversaries,  hinted 
at  in  the  first  of  the  letters  just  quoted, 
are  not  to  be  overlooked.  Though  a 
protectionist,  he  was  a  Democrat,  where 
as  the  defendants  in  the  suits  were  Whig 
editors.  As  the  Democratic  editors  kept 
almost  unbroken  silence,  the  outcry  of 
the  populace,  uttered  through  the  ac 
credited  organs  of  a  political  party,  was 
to  be  braved  by  one  man. 

This  skirmish  at  Cooperstown  led  at 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  91 
once  to  a  pitched  battle.  The  first  suit 
for  libel  was  brought  against  the  editor 
of  the  Otsego  Republican,  above  men 
tioned,  for  an  article  described  by  Hor 
ace  Greeley  as  "urging  that  their  [the 
villagers']  extrusion  from  'The  Point/ 
though  legal,  was  churlish,  and  impelled 
by  the  spirit  of  the  dog  in  the  manger. ' ' 
Cooper  states  the  fact  in  a  letter  dated 
October  2,  1837  :  "I  hear  the  enemy  is 
a  good  deal  ashamed  of  himself,  which 
is  showing  more  grace  than  I  thought  he 
possessed.  Symptoms  of  giving  in  on 
the  part  of  our  editor,  who  must  suc 
cumb  completely,  or  f  abide  the  time,'- 
for  I  have  sued  him.  His  Maecenas  told 
me  yesterday,  he  had  advised  him  to 
come  to  me  and  say  that  he  was  willing 
to  let  me  publish  any  statement  I  pleased 
to  correct  his  own  mistakes  he  had  made 
himself.  To  which  I  answered  this 
would  not  do.  He  had  published  false 
hoods  as  from  himself,  and  he  must  cor 
rect  them  as  from  himself,  or  take  the 
consequences." 


92    JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPER 

Homeward  Bound  and  its  sequel,  Home 
as  Found,  written  in  hot  haste,  were 
published  the  next  year.  The  advent 
ures  at  sea  and  the  battle  with  Arabs 
have  earned  for  the  first  some  civil  re 
marks  $  but  nothing  has  ever  been  said 
in  extenuation  of  Home  as  Found,  which 
was  a  monumental  and  calamitous  blun 
der.  Its  pictures  of  the  press  and  of 
New  York  society  infuriated  New 
Yorkers,  and  drew  from  the  news 
papers  such  execration  as  makes  one 
blush  for  one's  countrymen.  The  feroc 
ity  of  the  American  press  was,  if  pos 
sible,  surpassed  by  the  disingenuousness 
and  brutality  of  Blackwood  and  Fraser, 
the  Quarterly,  and  even  the  Times,  all  of 
which  in  their  assaults  on  Cooper  for  his 
England  and  his  review  of  Lockhart's 
Life  of  Scott  sullied  their  pages  with 
rancorous  contumely. 

Goaded  by  the  turbulent  mob,  Cooper 
closed  with  his  traducers.  Whoever 
denies  him  vocabulary  cannot  have  read 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  93 
his  controversial  writings.  His  invec 
tive  was  a  weapon  of  far  more  exquisite 
temper  than  that  of  the  rioters  ;  for, 
whereas  they  descended  to  arraignment 
of  motives  and  to  defamation  of  charac 
ter,  his  most  flaming  anger  never  made 
him  forget  that  the  ruffianly  conduct 
of  others  need  not  interfere  with  his 
remaining  a  gentleman.  His  annihilat 
ing  retorts,  being  neither  falsehoods  nor 
personal  insults,  were  not  actionable. 

The  year  after  the  Point  controversy 
Cooper  published  The  American  Demo 
crat,  incidentally  excoriating  the  press. 
The  next  year  he  recovered  a  verdict 
against  the  Cooperstown  editor  whom  he 
had  sued  in  1837.  The  Chenango  Tele 
graph  and  the  Oneida  Whig,  small  local 
sheets,  were  also  prosecuted,  as  likewise 
Park  Benjamin's  Evening  Signal  of  New 
York.  In  May,  1839,  appeared  The 
History  of  the  Navy  of  the  United  States  of 
America.  A  year  later  Horace  Greeley, 
editor  of  the  New  Yorker,  jauntily 


94    JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 

writes  :  "Mr.  Cooper  proved  not  long 
ago  that  the  editor  of  the  Chenango  Tele 
graph  had  taken  away  his  character,  and 
a  liberal  jury  awarded  him  four  hun 
dred  dollars  in  payment  for  it.  He  has 
obtained  several  characters,  it  seems, 
since  then,  and  they  have  all  been 
stolen  away  ;  for  he  is  suing,  to  recover 
their  value,  the  supposed  robbers.  He 
has  sued  Col.  Stone  of  the  Commercial 
for  proving  that  his  Naval  History  is  a 
shallow  book,  and  on  Wednesday  of  this 
week  he  instituted  proceedings  against 
Park  Benjamin  for  depriving  him  of  his 
'  reputation. >  If  Benjamin  is  guilty,  we 
are  at  a  loss  to  know  what  he  wanted  to 
do  with  such  a  worthless  commodity, 
unless  he  intends  to  bestow  it  on  some  of 
his  enemies.77  According  to  Benjamin, 
that  would  seem  to  have  been  the  best 
disposition  to  make  of  it;  for  he  had 
said  that  blackguarding  was  "as  natu 
ral  to  Cooper  as  snarling  to  a  tom-cat 
or  growling  to  a  bull- dog/'  and  had 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER    95 

called  him  the  "  common  mark  of  scorn 
and  contempt  of  every  well-informed 
American,"  and  a  " superlative  dolt." 
Throughout  these  years  such  envenomed 
stuff  tainted  newspapers,  big  and  little, 
in  all  parts  of  the  country,  one  copy 
ing  another's  remarks,  and  re-enforcing 
them  with  commendatory  comments. 
It  was  doubtless  thought  good  sport  to 
irritate  a  man  who  the  editors  did  not  at 
first  suppose  could  harm  them.  More 
over,  the  scandal  of  course  served  the 
important  end  of  circulating  the  news 
papers. 

Cooper  held  other  views  of  the  func 
tion  of  the  press.  A  letter  which  he 
sent  to  the  Journal  of  Commerce  in  1840, 
but  which  appears  not  to  have  been 
printed,  describes  a  libel  as  "  injuri 
ous,  false,  and  malicious,"  points  out  a 
newspaper's  power  for  good  and  for  bad, 
and  states  his  own  position.  The  pre 
tension  of  the  press  to  be  the  voice  of 
the  people  he  denies.  The  press  is,  on 


96  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
the  contrary,  a  mere  aggregate  of  inde 
pendent  sheets,  each  existing  primarily 
to  make  money,  and  each  giving  voice 
to  the  opinions  of  its  editor,  who  is, 
therefore,  as  strictly  accountable  as  any 
other  man  for  personal  attacks.  An 
author's  right  of  criticism  and  an  editor's 
are  mutual.  Each  may  handle  the 
other's  published  work  as  roughly  as  he 
pleases,  but  neither  may  touch  on  the 
other's  private  affairs.  For  the  abuse 
of  these  rights  the  press  seeks  a  pretext 
in  its  own  alleged  impersonality,  leaving 
to  the  author  whose  character  is  assailed 
no  resort  but  the  law.  To  be  worthy  of 
their  high  calling,  editors  must  come  to 
understand  their  personal  responsibility, 
and  not  infringe  the  rights  of  others. 
With  more  to  like  purpose,  Cooper  sup 
ports  the  unpopular  cause,  making  it 
clear  that  he  understands  the  law  of 
libel,  as  well  as  the  pettiness  of  a  large 
part  of  the  press. 

Truly,  the  American   press    of   1840 


JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPER  97 
was  provincial.  How  could  it  be  other 
wise,  when  steam  was  in  leading-strings 
and  electricity  had  not  learned  the  alpha 
bet ;  when^the  journey  from  Albany  to 
New  YorlTtaok-all  day,  and  an ..  answer 
tp_._  aL-lettejL-ia-JE^glaud^did  _jaot_  .come 
for  at  least  a  month  ;  when  the  Albany 
Evening  Journal  —  a  badly  printed  four- 
page  sheet,  ten  years  old — was  three  parts 
advertisements,  and  the  Tribune  did  not 
exist  ?  Newspapers  now  have  their  full 
stint  of  faults ;  but  they  do  give  a  true 
history  of  the  world,  together  with  the 
opinions  of  all  kinds  of  people  from  every 
quarter  of  the  globe.  The  better  sort  no 
longer  depend  for  circulation  wholly  on 
local  happenings  and  on  scandal.  As  the 
field  has  widened,  provinciality  has  been 
to  a  great  extent  replaced  by  breadth 
of  view. 

Seeing  what  the  press  was  and  per 
haps  dreaming  of  what  it  might  be, 
Cooper,  when  attacked  by  a  creature  he 
despised,  took  steps  to  protect  himself. 


98  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
The  opposition  gathered  force.  He 
stood  alone.  Assisted  only  by  his 
nephew,  Eichard  Cooper,  he  dexter 
ously  conducted  to  a  successful  issue 
suits  against  the  most  powerful  news 
papers  in  the  country,  defended  by  the 
ablest  counsel. 

James  Watson  Webb,  editor  of  the 
New  York  Couriet*  and  Inquirer,  who 
had  lived  at  Cooperstown  as  a  youth, 
was  criminally  indicted  in  1839  for  a 
marvellous  rigmarole  purporting  to  be 
a  review  of  Home  as  Found.  In  the 
course  of  an  endless  farrago  of  fact  and 
invention,  Cooper  is  styled  a  u  base- 
minded  caitiff  who  has  traduced  his 
country  for  filthy  lucre  and  low-born 
spleen, "  and  a  "  slanderer  who  is  in 
fact  a  traitor  to  national  pride  and  na 
tional  character.'7  Webb's  remarks  on 
the  first  indictment  led  to  a  second, 
which  was  dismissed  on  his  retraction 
of  the  statement  that  the  first  had  been 
"  secured  by  political  trickery."  The 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  99 
case,  which  was  tried  twice,  and  during 
which  Home  as  Found  was  read  as  evi 
dence,  was  finally  dismissed  in  1843  on 
account  of  the  second  disagreement  of 
the  jury.  "  Satisfied  with  this  experi 
ence,"  writes  Thurlow  Weed,  "Mr. 
Cooper  procured  no  more  indictments, 
but  thenceforward  preferred  the  civil  to 
the  criminal  side  of  the  calendar." 

Thurlow  Weed,  of  ingratiating  man 
ner  and  velvety  voice,  who  when  a  lad 
served  his  apprenticeship  as  journeyman 
printer  at  Cooperstown,  and  in  time  be 
came,  in  partnership  with  Seward  and 
Greeley,  one  of  the  consummate  politi 
cians  of  America,  was  then  the  astute 
editor  of  the  Albany  Evening  Journal, 
the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Whig 
press.  Immediately  after  the  affair 
of  the  Three  Mile  Point  he  had  copied 
into  the  Journal  the  article  from  the 
Otsego  Republican,  i  i  supplementing  it, ' ' 
he  says,  "with  some  approving  re 
marks."  Weed  was  not  sued,  however, 


100    JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPEE 

until  1840  ;  and  the  case  did  not  come  to 
trial  at  Fonda  until  October,  1841.  As 
the  defendant  did  not  appear,  judgment 
\  went  by  default.  Weed  thereupon 
'•  wrote  to  the  Tribune,  then  six  months 
old,  his  version  of  the  case.  Horace 
Greeley  published  the  letter,  and  was 
promptly  sued.  "Weed,  disconcerted  at 
his  failure  in  a  matter  which  he  had  at 
first  not  taken  seriously,  resorted  to  the 
device  of  collecting  paragraphs  from 
newspapers  in  the  State  of  New  York 
and  elsewhere,  and  printing  them,  a 
column  or  more  at  a  time,  under  the 
heading,  COOPERAGE  —  a  caption  lend 
ing  itself  readily  to  weak  verbal  quib 
bles  which  made  mirth  for  the  ground 
lings.  He  also  contributed,  as  occasion 
served,  editorial  articles  on  the  subject, 
some  of  them  virulent.  One  of  his  re 
prints,  referring  to  Cooper's  refusal  to 
believe  that  Weed's  non-appearance  in 
court  was  due  to  illness  in  his  family, 
contains  the  words  :  "He  might  as  well 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  101 
have  appealed  to  the  reddest  of  the 
great  novelist's  Indians  when  the  war 
paint  was  on  him,  and  the  scalps  of  the 
palefaces  hung  reeking  at  his  belt," 
The  republication  of  this  article,  and 
of  others,  was  construed  as  libellous, 
Weed's  testimony  to  matters  of  fact  was 
excluded  as  irrelevant,  and  the  jury, 
under  the  judge's  instruction,  found  for 
the  plaintiff.  Suit  followed  suit,  the 
press  asserting  its  liberty  to  attack  the 
individual,  and  Cooper  denying  its 
right  to  invade  private  life.  The  fight 
011  both  sides  was  relentless.  As  Weed 
was  invariably  defeated,  he  at  length 
decided  that  his  better  policy  was  to 
"  withdraw  the  injurious  imputations 
...  on  the  character  of  Mr.  Cooper" 
which  he  had  been  making.  This  un 
repentant  retraction,  "as  broad  as  the 
charges,"  he  published,  with  a  bad 
grace,  in  the  Journal  of  December  14, 
1842. 

Horace    Greeley's   case   came    on   at 


102    JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPER 

Ballston  in  that  month.  He  appeared 
in  answer  to  the  summons,  admitted 
his  publication  of  Weed's  letter,  and 
" accepted  the  responsibility  thereof." 
Eichard  Cooper  opened  for  the  plain 
tiff,  Greeley  replied,  and  Fenimore 
Cooper  summed  up  "in  a  longer  and 
rather  stronger  speech  than  Eichard's." 
The  judge  then  " bullied  the  jury" 
into  finding  for  the  plaintiff.  So  says 
Greeley.  Hastening  back  to  New 
York,  he  narrated  his  experience  in 
an  interminable  article  for  the  next 
morning's  Tribune,  which  many  people 
found  highly  enlivening,  and  for  which 
he  was  at  once  sued.  This  time  he  was 
defended  by  Seward,  who  spoke  of 
11  vindictive  damages"  and  of  "star 
chamber  rescripts  of  libel,"  and  suc 
ceeded  in  staving  off  a  final  trial. 

Thus  Cooper,  conscientiously  fighting 
for  principle,  after  some  six  years  dis 
comfited,  without  reforming,  the  press, 
which  still  hurled  adjectives  at  his 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE    103 
head.     He  gained,  as  was  said,    "the 
reputation  of  a  proud,  captious,  censori 
ous,  arbitrary,  dogmatical,  malicious,  il 
liberal,  revengeful,  and  litigious  man"; 
or,    as  Greeley,    anticipating  Whistler, 
more  neatly  turns  it,  of  one  "  combining 
in  his   manners   what  a  Yankee   once* 
characterized  as  '  winning  ways  to  make 
people  hate  him.7  "     The  unpopularity, 
as  such,  did  not  seriously  distress  a  man 
so  rich  in  resources  as  Cooper,  but,  natu; 
rallVjjit  saddened  and  somewhat  embik.     *- 
tered  him,;   for   "What   deep  wounds 
ever  closed  without  a  scar  ?  "     It  so  cur-~j 
tailed  the  sale  of  his  novels  that  some  I 
people  who  had  read  the  early  ones  as  •* 
boys  were  scarcely  aware  of  the  exist 
ence  of  any  subsequent  to  The  Red  Rover , 
and  that  he  was  led  to  say  in  1843  :  "I 
know  that  many  of  the  New  York  book 
sellers  are  afraid  to  touch  my  works, 
on  account  of  the  press  of  that  right 
eous  and  enlightened  emporium."          ,*r»J 

The  feeling  of  those  who  knew  him 


104  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 
best  —  a  strain  of  men  whom  it  is  in 
structive  to  compare  with  some  who 
spoke  ill  of  him  —  is  expressed  by  his 
friend  Morse,  who  had  his  own  expe 
rience  of  litigation.  "  It  is  not  because  I 
have  not  thought  of  you  and  your  excel 
lent  family/'  he  wrote  from  New  York 
while  the  rage  of  the  multitude  was 
maddest,  "that  I  have  not  long  since 
written  you,  to  know  your  personal  wel 
fare.  I  hear  of  you  often,  it  is  true, 
through  the  papers.  They  praise  you 
as  usual,  for  it  is  praise  to  have  the 
abuse  of  such  as  abuse  you.  In  all 
your  libeL  suits  against  these  degraded 
wretches,  I  sympathise  entirely  with 
you,  and  there  are  thousands  who  now 
thank  you  in  their  hearts  for  the  moral 
courage  you  display  in  bringing  these 
licentious  scamps  to  a  knowledge  of  their 
duty.  Be  assured  the  good  sense,  the 
intelligence,  the  right  feeling  of  the 
community  at  large  are  with  you.  The 
licentiousness  of  the  press  needed  the  re- 


JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPER    105 

buke  which  you  have  given  it ;  and  it 
feels  it,  too,  despite  its  awkward  attempts 
to  brave  it  out.  I  will  say  nothing  of 
your  Home  as  Found.  I  will  use  the 
frankness  to  say  that  I  wish  you  had  not 
written  it.  But  when  am  I  ever  to  see 
you  ?  Do  call  on  me  if  you  come  to  the 
city." 

In  1850  the  Point  went,  by  the  terms 
of  Judge  Cooper's  will,  to  his  namesake, 
William  Cooper.  He  leased  it  as  a  pic 
nicking  ground  to  the  village,  which  pur 
chased  it  of  him  in  1899.  Thus  after 
sixty-two  years  the  incident  was  closed. 


VII. 

IN  May,  1839,  when  Cooper  was  al 
most  fifty,  appeared  the  Naval  History, 
which  he  had  been  pondering  for  some 
fifteen  years,  and  pretty  steadily  pre 
paring  ever  since  his  return  from  Europe 
in  1833.  His  information,  especially 
about_the  War  of  1812,  he  got  largely 
from  offieers  who  were  engaged  ;  and  he 
spared  no  pains  to  insure  accuracy  by 
examination  of  official  records.  With 
unusual  knowledge  of  ships  and  of  mari 
time  affairs,  and  with  special  power  of 
presenting  such  subjects,  he  produced  a 
classic  which,  though  now  unread,  has 
value  of  a  sort  that  can  belong  to  no 
subsequent  treatment  of  the  period  cov 
ered.  There  are  officers  in  the  navy 
who  remember  their  delight  on  first 
reading  those  accounts  of  "  battles  long 
ago,"  which  Admiral  Du  Pont  said  that 
any  lieutenant  l '  should  be  ashamed  not 
to  know  by  heart." 


JAMES  FEOTMORE  COOPER  107 
The  publication  of  the  History  was  a 
signal  for  Cooper's  enemies  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  to  charge  on  him 
with  redoubled  vigor.  As  it  turned  out, 
the  points  chosen  for  attack  were  not,  as 
was  supposed,  weak,  but  were  impreg 
nable  ;  and  they  were  skilfully  defended. 
The  British  criticism  of  greatest  impor 
tance  is  that  of  the  Edinburgh  (April, 
1840),  speaking  rather  slightingly  of  the 
American  navy,  and  comparing  Cooper's 
work  unfavourably  with  the  Naval  His 
tory  of  Great  Britain,  by  William  James, 
whose  book,  as  well  as  the  Edinburgh 
article,  Cooper  turned  wrong  side  out  in 
the  Democratic  Eeview  (May  and  June, 
1842).  The  American  criticism  bore 
on  Cooper's  version  of  the  battle  of  Lake 
Erie. 

Perry's  unparalleled  victory  in  1813 
won  for  him,  as  all  the  world  knows, 
deathless  glory.  <  '  Furious  as  the  action 
was,"  writes  Mr.  Henry  Adams,  "a 
more  furious  dispute  raged  over  it  when 


108  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 

.  .  .  the  friends  of  Perry  and  of  Elliott 
wrangled  over  the  action."  The  dis 
pute,  stripped  of  details,  turned  on 
whether  Elliott,  the  second  in  command, 
whom  Perry  at  first  warmly  commended 
and  against  whom  he  subsequently  pre 
ferred  charges,  did  his  duty  in  that  ac 
tion.  Cooper,  believing  that  Elliott's 
alleged  "  delinquency  admitted  of  many 
doubts, "  that  " irreparable  injustice" 
had  been  done  him,  and  that  he  was  a 
"deeply  injured  man,"  after  critical 
examination  of  a  vast  mass  of  conflict 
ing  testimony,  discarded  as  unfit  for  use 
by  a  historian  everything  except  what 
rested  on  incontrovertible  evidence,  and, 
steering  clear  of  the  complicated  quarrel 
between  the  Perry  and  the  Elliott  fac 
tions,  calmly  and  impartially  stated  as- 
certainable  facts.  While  giving  full 
credit  to  Perry,  both  in  the  History  and 
afterward  in  a  biography  of  Perry,  he 
steadily  refused  to  join  in  the  hue  and 
cry  of  those  who  hounded  Elliott, 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE    109 

against  whom,  for  reasons  chiefly  polit 
ical  which  it  is  needless  to  specify,  pop 
ular  feeling,  especially  as  uttered  in 
the  Whig  press,  ran  high.  His  sworn 
foes,  thereupon,  making  common  cause 
with  the  adherents  of  Perry,  and  alleg 
ing  that  he  had  perverted  facts  in  order, 
as  lie  puts  it,  to  "  glorify  Capt.  Elli 
ott  and  lessen  Capt.  Perry  in  the  pub 
lic  estimation, "  trained  their  guns  on 
him. 

William  A.  Duer,  ex-president  of 
Columbia  College,  opened  fire  in  four 
numbers  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser 
(June,  1839),  edited  by  William  Leete 
Stone.  He  was  followed  in  the  North 
American  Review  (October,  1839)  by  his 
nephew  by  marriage,  Lieutenant  Alex 
ander  Slidell  Mackenzie,  brother-in-law 
to  Commodore  Perry's  surviving  brother, 
Captain  Matthew  Calbraith  Perry.  At 
the  same  time  was  printed  a  lecture  which 
Tristam  Surges  had  delivered  before 
the  Historical  Society  of  Ehode  Island, 


110  JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPEE 
Perry's  state,  exalting  Perry  at  Elliott's 
expense.  A  couple  of  years  later  ap 
peared  Mackenzie's  biography  of  Perry, 
giving  the  testimony  on  Perry's  side  and 
suppressing  that  on  Elliott's.  Those 
were  the  main  forces  arrayed  against 
Cooper. 

It  happens  that  some  of  his  letters 
which  have  been  preserved  give,  casu 
ally  but  rather  minutely,  a  clear  account 
of  the  chief  steps  he  thought  proper  to 
take.  A  few  short  extracts  will  suffice 
to  mark  important  points.  < 1 1  am  get 
ting  out  a  second  edition  of  the  History," 
he  writes  from  Philadelphia  in  January, 
1840,  "  which  is  an  improvement  in 
many  respects,  though  Lake  Erie  stands 
firm.  A  vast  deal  of  unprincipled  op 
position  has  been  shown  to  the  book  in 
consequence  of  the  malignancy  against 
Elliott,  but  it  is  looking  it  all  down. 
I  have  thoroughly  examined  the  affair, 
and  make  no  doubt  that  the  following 
are  the  facts,  though  you  will  perceive 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  111 
I  do  not  touch  on  the  subject  in  the  His 
tory.'7  After  precisely  stating  the  facts, 
and  rapidly  skimming  half  a  dozen  other 
matters,  he  proceeds:  "By  the  way,  I 
understand  Mr.  Slidell  has  been  review 
ing  me  in  the  North  American.  As 
might  be  expected  it  is  all  pig  tail- 
on  Lake  Erie.  I  think  he  will  feel  a 
paragraph  in  the  Preface  of  the  new 
edition  —  if  he  do  not,  he  must  have 
little  sensibility,  as  its  truth  is  very  bit 
ing.  I  am  reserving  myself  for  his  biog 
raphy  of  Perry,  when  Til  try  my  hand 
at  reviewing.  Eely  on  it,  if  they  ever 
draw  me  out  fully  on  the  Lake  Erie 
affair,  they'  11  regret  it.  I  wish  to  avoid 
it,  but  they  must  not  press  too  hard." 
In  October  of  the  same  year  he  writes 
from  Cooperstown :  "I  am  about  to 
answer  Surges,  the  North  American 
(Mackenzie  they  tell  me),  and  the  Edin 
burgh  Eeview.  I  may  defer  the  last, 
however,  for  an  Introduction  to  a  third 
volume.  It  is  almost  too  grave  for  a 


112    JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 

newspaper  reply,  and  then  it  is  national. 
As  for  Burges,  his  lecture  is  contempti 
ble,  and  I  should  not  deem  it  worthy  of 
a  reply,  were  it  not  for  the  negligent 
manner  in  which  the  world  takes  up 
false  impressions.  I  have  very  little  to 
say  to  the  North  American,  but  it  is 
conclusive.  As  for  the  Edinburgh  it 
rests  altogether  on  James,  and  out  of 
his  own  mouth  will  I  convict  him.77  At 
the  end  of  the  following  February  he 
says  :  "As  soon  as  the  river  opens  I  go 
to  Washington,  to  procure  documents 
from  the  Navy  Department,  for  the  trial 
of  Mr.  Stone, —  a  libel  in  the  review  of 
Nav.  Hist.77  Going  on  to  speak  at 
length  and  in  some  detail  of  the  suits 
against  Benjamin,  Webb,  and  Weed, 
which,  though  all  on  his  hands  at  once, 
do  not  seem  to  have  damped  his  spirits, 
he  incidentally  remarks  that  they  "  come 
up  to  the  business  with  great  reluctance. 
As  yet  we  have  prevailed  in  every  trial, 
motion,  or  resistance  of  a  motion. " 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  113 

This  new  suit  against  Stone,  for 
"  gross  personal  imputations  "  contained 
in  Duer's  articles  in  the  Commercial  Ad 
vertiser,  so  airily  spoken  of  by  Horace 
Greeley,  led  ultimately  to  an  arrange 
ment  resulting  in  triumph  for  Cooper  as 
complete  as  Perry's  :  he  met  the  enemy, 
and  they  were  his.  However  one  may 
view  the  " crusade"  (as  it  was  mis 
named)  against  the  press,  of  his  course 
in  this  matter  there  cannot  now  be  two 
opinions.  It  is  possible  to  believe  that 
personal  feeling  and  passion  narrowed 
his  outlook  and  warped  his  judgment 
when  he  was  defending  his  good  name  ; 
not  to  believe  that  in  substantiating  the 
statements  made  in  his  book  he  acted 
with  a  single  eye  to  truth  is  impossible. 
It  was  a  good  fight  that  he  fought,  an 
honourable  victory  that  he  won. 

It  happened  thus.  A  decision  against 
Stone  on  a  demurrer  brought  about  a 
reference  of  the  whole  matter  in  issue 
to  three  lawyers  —  Samuel  Steevens, 


114  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 
chosen  by  Cooper;  Daniel  Lord,  Jr., 
by  Stone ;  Samuel  A.  Foot,  by  both. 
On  June  16,  1842,  thirty  days  after  the 
beginning  of  the  arbitration,  the  ref 
erees  rendered  a  decision  on  the  eight 
points  submitted  to  them,  Foot  dissent 
ing  on  certain  specified  particulars  in 
the  second,  third,  and  seventh  points. 
They  decided  that  the  plaintiff  would 
be  entitled  to  a  verdict  in  an  ordinary 
suit  for  libel,  that  he  had  fulfilled  his 
duty  as  a  historian,  that  his  narrative 
of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  was  true, 
that  it  was  impartial ;  that  the  critic 
had  not  fulfilled  his  duty  as  a  reviewer, 
that  his  review  was  essentially  untrue, 
that  it  was  not  impartial ;  and,  finally, 
that  the  defendant  should  publish  this 
decision  in  New  York,  Washington,  and 
Albany  newspapers. 

Cooper's  bearing  and  his  brilliant 
manner  of  conducting  the  case  have  been 
described  by  Bryant  and  by  Tucker- 
man,  each  of  whom  was  present  during 


JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPER  115 
part  of  the  proceedings,  which  lasted 
five  days.  Their  impressions  are  con 
firmed  in  a  long  letter  of  Cooper's  to  his 
wife,  written  at  the  Globe  Hotel,  in  New 
York,  on  the  morning  after  the  sittings 
closed.  * '  The  arbitration  commenced, ? J 
he  says,  "on  Monday,  at  J-past  4,  P.M. 
I  opened  in  a  speech  of  about  two 
hours.  It  was  generally  admitted  that 
the  opening  was  effective.  Campbell 
followed.  Then  came  some  witnesses 
on  Tuesday,  and  a  part  of  Campbell7  s 
summing  up.  He  made  a  very  fair 
speech,  concluding  it  on  Wednesday 
afternoon.  Dick  came  next  on  the 
questions  of  law.  After  speaking  very 
well  for  an  hour,  he  was  stopped  by  the 
arbitrators,  who  told  him  they  preferred 
to  hear  the  other  side.  This  was  tanta 
mount  to  saying  that  his  views  so  far 
were  their  own.  As  they  never  asked 
him  to  resume,  we  infer  that  they  were 
with  us  in  the  law.  Bidwell  followed. 
He  commenced  about  8  on  Wednes- 


116  JAMES  FEtflMOEE  COOPER 
day  evening,  and  finished  about  eight 
on  Thursday,  having  spoken  about  five 
hours,  in  all.  I  commenced  summing  up 
when  Bidwell  sat  down,  and  spoke  until 
past  ten,  when  we  adjourned.  Yester 
day,  Friday,  I  resumed  at  four,  and 
spoke  until  past  ten  again.  Here  the 
matter  rests  for  the  decision. 

"At  first  the  papers  were  studiously 
silent,  and  our  audiences  were  respect 
able,  though  not  large.  The  opening, 
however,  took,  and  many  attended  in 
expectation  of  hearing  my  summing  up. 
On  Thursday  numbers  of  Duer's  friends 
appeared,  and  some  twenty  of  my  most 
active  enemies  crowded  within  the  bar. 
Among  others,  Jordan  came  and  took  a 
seat  directly  opposite  to  me,  and  for 
three  hours,  his  eyes  were  riveted  on 
Bidwell.  When  I  rose,  he  was  within 
six  feet  of  me.  For  half  an  hour  I 
could  see  that  his  eyes  were  fastened 
on  my  countenance.  Then  his  head 
dropped  and  for  an  hour  it  was  con- 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER  117 
cealed.  He  could  stand  it  no  longer, 
got  up,  and  went  out.  Stone's  counte 
nance  changed,  became  gloomy,  Duer 
went  out,  and  I  had  not  spoken  the  two 
hours,  before  that  set  vanished.  The 
impression  was  decided  on  Thursday, 
when  I  closed,  and  the  next  day  there 
was  a  throng.  I  now  spoke  six  hours, 
and  all  that  time,  the  most  profound 
silence  prevailed.  I  do  not  believe  a 
soul  left  the  room.  When  I  closed  there 
was  a  burst  of  applause  that  the  con 
stable  silenced,  and  a  hundred  persons 
crowded  round  me,  two-thirds  of  whom 
were  strangers.  There  is  not  the  small 
est  doubt  that  we  have  carried  all  before 
us,  so  far  as  the  impression  of  the  audi 
ence  was  concerned. 

"I  tell  you  this,  my  love,  because 
I  know  it  will  give  you  pleasure.  Dick 
has  just  come  in,  and  says  he  has  seen 
the  Chief  Justice,  who  tells  him  that  all 
he  has  heard  speak  on  the  subject,  say 
we  have  altogether  the  best  of  it. 


118    JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPER 

"I  am  well,  but  excessively  tired, 
and  can  only  tell  you  my  present  move 
ments.  .  .  . 

"My  last  victory  over  Weed,"  he 
cannot  help  adding,  "appears  to  have 
stopped  his  mouth.  The  tide  is  unques 
tionably  turning  in  my  favour,  and  the 
power  of  the  press  cannot  look  down 
truth  as  completely  as  was  thought." 

In  1843  Cooper  contributed  to  Gra 
ham's  Magazine  a  biographical  sketch  of 
Perry ;  and  in  the  same  year  appeared 
his  Battle  of  Lake  Erie,  in  answer  to 
Burges,  Duer,  and  Mackenzie.  Who 
ever  wishes  to  study  the  whole  subject, 
including  the  controversy,  may  do  so  in 
those  two  publications,  which  explain 
it  all  as  Cooper,  who  probably  under 
stood  it  better  than  any  one  else  who 
did  not  take  part  in  the  engagement, 
saw  it.  Mackenzie  appears  to  have  re 
plied,  for  Cooper  writes  in  October, 
1844  :  "I  am  now  answering  Macken 
zie's  answer  to  my  pamphlet.  .  .  .  He 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE    119 

will  regret  ever  making  his  attack." 
One  who  has  read  Cooper's  solemn  re 
view  of  the  court-martial  which  tried 
Mackenzie  for  the  execution  of  Spencer 
can  readily  believe  that. 

Courage,  as  stubborn  as  Grant's,  had 
won  the  day.  One  or  two  libel  suits 
may  have  flared  fitfully  awhile  longer 
before  flickering  out.  They  are  all  for 
gotten.  They  do  not  signify  now.  The 
pity  of  it  is  that  talent  so  commanding 
as  is  shown  in  everything  Cooper  did 
and  wrote  in  connection  with  the  litiga 
tions,  that  character  so  strong,  so  pure, 
should  have  been  spent  on  matters  so 
immemorable  ;  that  the  ephemeral  should 
so  long  have  trespassed  on  the  true  vo 
cation  of  the  great  master  of  the  pri 
meval  forest  and  the  enduring  sea. 


vm. 

BALZAC  and  Cooper  are  as  unlike  as 
two  novelists  can  be.     Yet  the  French 
man's  article  on  The  Pathfinder,  which 
on  its  appearance  less  than  a  year  after 
the    Naval   History   he   calls    uun  beau 
livre,"  is  the  most  sympathetic  contem 
porary  estimate  of  the  American,  whose 
works  he  had  "  read  and  re-read. ' '    "  He 
owes  the  high  place  he  holds  in  modern 
literature/7  writes  Balzac,  as  translated 
/by    Miss    Wormeley,     "to    two    facul- 
/  ties :  that  of  painting  the  sea  and  sea- 
I  men  ;  that  of  idealising  the  magnificent 
I  landscapes  of  America.  ...  I  feel   for 
\his  two  faculties  the  admiration  Walter 
Scott  felt  for  them,  which  is  still  further 
deserved  by  the  grandeur,  the  original 
ity  of  Leather-Stocking/7    who  is   "a 
statue,  a  magnificent  moral  hermaphro 
dite,    born  of  the  savage  state  and  of 
civilisation,    who  will   live  as  long  as 
literatures  last.  ...  A  little  good  advice, 


JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER  121 
a  little  more  study  and  this  composition 
would  have  had  no  defect.  The  navi 
gation  of  the  lake,  a  delicious  miniature, 
is  equal  to  the  finest  of  Cooper's  mari 
time  scenes.  .  .  .  Leather-Stocking,  un 
der  one  name  or  another,  dominates  all 
else,  here  as  elsewhere,  and  more  than 
elsewhere.  That  figure,  so  profoundly 
melancholy,  is  here  in  part  explained." 
Those  few  sentences  ripped  from  their 
context  give  but  a  faint  idea  of  Balzac's 
abounding  enthusiasm,  uttered  in  the 
ringing  words  of  one  great  man  delight 
ing  to  honour  another  by  searching  out 
the  soul  of  noble  work.  EKe 


his  kindest  critic,  who  under 
stood  him  best,  praises  the  idyl  of  Ontario 
no  more  highly  than  Balzac.  itad  done 
twjenty  years  earlier. 

He  proceeds  to  dwell  at  some  length 
on  Cooper's  "  profound  and  radical  im 
potence  for  the  comic"  as  the  cause 
of  his  inferiority  to  Scott.  That  is  only 
half  true.  Scott  has  left  numerous  sue- 


122    JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 

cessful  comic  figures,  and  Cooper  a  few 
dire  failures.  But  to  make  that  the 
differential  distinction  between  the  two 
is  to  contradict  what  Balzac  himself  says 
earlier  and  later  in  this  same  estimate. 
Does  not  the  fundamental  difference 
rather  lie  simply  in  Scott's  broader 
human  sympathy,  clearly  shown  by  a 
cursory  contrast  of  his  throng  of  people 
with  Cooper's  almost  pathetically  scanty 
gathering  of  men  and  women  who  truly 
live? 

Betty  Flanagan  —  to  begin  with 
Cooper's  first  woman  —  is  remembered 
chiefly  as  having  pleased  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  for  the  sketch,  though  good,  is 
slight.  Twenty  years  later  comes  Judith 
Hutter,  who,  though  a  memorable  char 
acter,  lacks  substance,  and  fades  at  the 
last  ineffectually.  In  the  interval  ap 
pear  several  pairs  of  contrasted  young 
women,  not  specially  distinguishable  and 
leaving  no  definite  impression,  who  all 
together  are  not  worth  Di  Yernon. 


JAMES  FESTIMOBE  COOPER    123 
Prom  Jane  Austen's  heroines  they  in-  , 
herit  "sensibility,"  though  they  do  not 
swoon  so  often ;  but,  whereas  hers  are  ] 
individual  and  alive,  Cooper's  are  apt  ^ 
to  be  mere  " utilities."     It  is  fortunate 
that  Cooper's  plots  do  not  turn  on  love,  ] 
for  the  feminine  element  in  his  novels  is] 
totally  inadequate  to  inspire    interest/ 
His  petticoats,  however,  colourless  and 
conventional  though  they  be,    are  less 
objectionable  than  some  of  the  prepos 
terous  females  graduated  from  the  ana 
lytic  school  of  fiction,  which  "  murders 
to  dissect,'7  all  the  while  professing  to 
follow  Balzac's  method  of  laying  bare 
the  heart  of  woman.     They  are,  at  any 
rate,  not  clinical  cases,   but,   at  worst, 
thin  shades  which  do  little  harm  beyond 
trying  the  reader's  patience  by  arresting 
the  narrative. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enumerate 
Scott's  live  men.  Against  them  stand 
Harvey  Birch ;  Long  Tom,  Boltrope, 
Bunting,  Marble,  Nightingale,  Bob 


124  JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPEE 
Yarn,  and  a  few  other  sea-dogs,  each 
perfectly  individual  and  distinct  from 
every  other,  and  not  closely  related 
either  to  Smollett's  or  to  Marryat's ; 
Uncas,  described  by  Parkinan  as  one  of 
the  most  attractive  characters  in  The 
Last  of  the  Mohicans,  but  "not  in  the 
least  like  a  real  Indian"  ;  Hard-Heart, 
of  whom  we  should  like  to  see  more,  and 
who  is  in  a  way  an  under-study  of  Uncas  ; 
£hat  beguiling,  blackguardly  rascal,  Ma- 
gua,  the  best- drawn  American.  Indian 
linjactipn,  from  moccasin  to  scalp-lock  as 
tangling  with  life  as  Geronimo ;  both  the 
AcTniirals,  more  especially  dear  old  Blue- 
water  $  Ishmael  Bush,  the  squatter ; 
Leather- Stocking.  The  list,  which  might 
be  made  a  little  longer,  but  not  greatly 
enriched,  shows  limited  range  of  char 
acter,  and  few  individual  instances  of 
keen  psychological  insight.  Cooper 
opens  one  of  his  chapters  with  the 
words:  "The  reader  will  understand 
that  I  offer  to  his  view  a  shifting  pano- 


JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE  125 
rama."  Here  we  have  an  inadvertent 
definition  of  his  almost  constant  aim  — 
to  offer  to  the  reader's  view  a  " shifting 
panorama,"  and  a  fascinating  one,  to 
which,  as  Balzac  points  out,  human 
portraiture  is  for  the  most  part  subor 
dinated. 

The  Pathfinder  was  followed  in  the 
autumn  of  the  same  year  (1840)  by 
Mercedes  of  Castile,  which  recounts  the 
first  voyage  of  Columbus  with,  it  has 
been  said,  "the  special  knowledge  of  a 
seaman,  the  accuracy  of  an  historian, 
and  with  something  of  the  fervour  of  a 
poet." 

The  last  written  of  the  Leather- Stock 
ing  tales,    the  one  we  are  apt  to  read 
first,    the    delighjz£uj_^egrs?aygr,    whijch 
everybody  who  has  once  been  a  boy  must 
rejoice  in  always,  appeared  nine  months 
later.     ' 1  One  more  book  about  our  litt.lft. 
lake  I "  Cooper  had  said  to  his  daughter.     /- 
It  is  the  very  soul  of  the  little  lake, 
overflowing  with  youthful  freshness  and 


126    JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER 

vivid  with  stirring  adventure.  The  nar 
rative  is  rapid,  the  plot  closely  knit,  the 
leading  character  flawlessly  drawn,  the 
description  of  scenery  aglow  with  sym 
pathy.  In  no  other  book  of  Cooper's 
does  the  natural  background  continue 
throughout  in  such  unbroken  accord 
with  the  story  and  the  central  figure. 
A  scene  more  suitable  for  just  such  a 
personage  as  he  whose  acquaintance  we 
make  in  this  mature  masterpiece  was 
never  devised.  Harmony  of  place,  per 
son,  and  action,  forming  the  essence  of 
romance,  gives  to  the  work  enduring 
artistic  validity.  Whereas  in  several  of 
Cooper's  novels  the  cargo  is  stowed  some 
what  at  random,  this  story,  more  than 
perhaps  any  of  his  others,  is  well  bal 
lasted.  Even  The  Pathfinder,  where  the 
hunter  plays  the  rather  incongruous  part 
of  lover,  is  not  superior.  Indeed,  for  all 
its  exhilarating  variety,  the  impression  it 
produces  is  scarcely  so  clear-cut  as  that 
of  The  Deerslayer,  which  has,  together 


JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER  127 
with  most  of  the  qualities  attributed  by 
Balzac  to  The  Pathfinder,  its  own  special 
virtue  of  uniformity  of  tone. 

Having  doubly  crowned  the  Leather- 
Stocking  series  with  these  two  books, 
published  when  his  relations  with  the 
press  were  in  a  ferment  and  his  creative 
faculty  was  incandescent,  Cooper  pres 
ently  put  to  sea  again.  In  his  book  on 
England,  published  in  1837,  he  had  ex 
pressed  a  desire  to  take  a  subject  "from 
the  teeming  and  glorious  naval  history 
of  this  country.  What  a  theme  this 
would  be  for  one  sufficiently  familiar 
with  the  sea  !  An  American  might  well 
enough  do  it,  too,  by  carrying  the  time 
back  anterior  to  the  separation,  when 
the  two  histories  were  one.  But  some 
of  their  own  seamen  will  yet  bear  away 
the  prize,  and,  although  I  may  envy,  I 
do  not  begrudge  it  to  them.  It  is  their 
right,  and  let  them  have  it.77  That 
prize  he  carried  oif  five  years  later  in 
The  Two  Admirals ,  a  nobly  conceived 


128  JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPEE 
story  of  the  evolutions  of  fleets  and  the 
attachment  of  friends,  unfortunately  in 
tertwined  with  a  ponderously  prosy  land 
tale  which  every  reader  must  wish  sunk 
to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  vitality 
of  the  marine  portion  of  the  book  de 
pends  on  dramatic  play  of  character  in 
such  nautical  scenes  as  had  never  been 
put  in  words.  Warm  friendship  be 
tween  two  men  of  the  type  we  fondly 
fancy  the  navy  to  have  been  full  of  be 
fore  the  days  of  steam  is  the  simple 
motive.  That  they  are  English  is  im 
material,  for  Cooper  had  friends  true 
bred  in  our  own  navy,  which  then 
possessed  no  fleet.  The  bnojLJS-  signifi 
cant  of  his  loving  interest  in  the  pro 
fession  ~~6f  his  youth,  which  on  some 
accounts  it  is  a  pity  he  left.  For  if, 
instead  of  venting  on  his  inferiors  that 
fighting  instinct  which  he  had  straight 
from  his  father,  he  could  have  given  it 
free  play  against  the  enemies  of  his 
country,  in  company  on  equal  terms 


JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPER  129 
with  men  of  his  own  stamp,  surely, 
though  we  should  have  lost  some  novels, 
he  would  have  been  happier.  His 
letters  show  minute  technical  knowledge 
of  every  detail  connected  with  naval 
matters  ;  and  one  can  scarcely  help 
suspecting  that  the  words  of  his  old 
shipmate,  Ned  Myers,  phrase  his  own 
frequent,  if  not  habitual,  feeling.  "I 
can  say  conscientiously,"  writes  Ned, 
"that,  were  my  life  to  be  passed  over 
again,  ...  it  should  be  passed  in  the 
navy.  .  .  .  God  bless  the  flag  ! ' ' 

Wing-and-Wing,  a  favourite  with  its 
author,  was  suggested  by  the  cruise  he 
made  in  1829,  in  the  Bella  Genovese, 
along  the  coast  of  Italy.  The  dashing 
young  Kaoul,  though  he  may  be  guilty 
of  half  the  sins  in  Leviticus,  sails  his 
fascinating  craft  with  consummate  skill ; 
and  the  ease  with  which  she  glides 
in  and  out  among  islands  and  be 
hind  promontories  is  equalled  only  by 
Cooper's  inerraut  instinct  in  using  nau- 


130  JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER 
tical  phrases  so  as  to  mean  something 
even  to  the  land-lubber  who  does  not 
know  the  lingo.  What,  for  instance, 
could  be  better  in  that  way  than  this 
sentence  :  "  Instead  of  pursuing  her  ad 
vantage  in  this  manner,  the  lugger  took 
in  her  after-sails,  wore  short  round  on 
her  heel,  came  to  the  wind  to  leeward 
of  the  felucca,  shivered  all  forward,  and 
luffed  up  so  near  what  may  be  called 
the  prize,  that  the  two  vessels  came  to 
gether  so  gently  as  not  to  break  an  egg, 
as  it  is  termed  "  I  If  any  testimony  is 
needed  to  the  seamanship,  it  is  given 
by  the  down-East  fishermen,  who  are 
said  never  to  tire  of  Cooper,  but  to  de 
spise  many  of  his  followers  because  of 
their  bungling  misuse  of  sea  terms.  So 
it  is  in  all  the  sea  tales  he  wrote  during 
the  next  few  years,  of  which  the  chief  is 
Afloat  and  Ashore  and  Miles  Wallingford, 
which  two  are  one  —  with  "a  good  deal 
of  love  in  part  second,"  he  writes,  "for 
the  delight  of  the  ladies."  His  ships 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER    131 

are  heroically  alive  ;  and  there  is  plenty 
of  adventure  —  some  natural,  some  fan 
tastic,  some  extravagantly  sensational,  al 
most  all  entertaining.     In  writing  of  the\ 
sea  he  could  not  help  being  entertaining ;  t 
for  there  his  heart  was,  and  there,  ac- ! 
cordingly,  was  his  treasure.  J 

The  books  subsequent  to  Miles  Wal- 
lingford  scarcely  signify,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Satanstoe,  the  first  of  the 
three  "  anti-rent "  novels.  As  Satans- 
toe  is  little  known,  it  is  but  fair  to  quote 
Mr.  Lounsbury's  opinion  that  it  is  "a 
picture  of  colonial  life  and  manners  in 
New  York  during  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  such  as  can  be  found  drawn  no 
where  else  so  truthfully  and  so  vividly." 
One  who  does  not  rank  it  "  among  the 
very  best  of  Cooper's  stories"  may, 
however,  gladly  testify  to  its  quaint,  old- 
fashioned  charm,  and  may  acknowledge 
that,  despite  its  disconnectedness,  some 
of  the  scenes  are  almost  first-rate,  and 
that  it  is  throughout  written  in  high 


132  JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE 
spirits,  and  without  any  prosy  inculca 
tion  of  doctrine.  So  much  cannot  be 
said  of  all  the  later  books,  some  of  which 
had  moral  axes  to  grind,  and  did  it 
poorly.  Of  the  last,  which  is  about 
trial  by  jury,  the  fitting  remark  has 
been  made  that  "the  good  qualities  it 
has  need  not  be  denied ;  only  they  are 
not  the  good  qualities  that  belong  to 
fiction." 

In  June,  1850,  Cooper,  whose  famil 
iarity  with  the  stage  dates  from  his 
friendship  with  Charles  Matthews  in  the 
early  twenties,  mentions  having  just 
given  Burton  a  three-act  piece  "in  rid 
icule  of  the  new  notions."  Hackett,  the 
comedian,  the  only  great  American  Fal- 
staff,  writes  the  author  a  friendly  ac 
count  of  the  first  performance,  enclos 
ing  a  lively  notice  from  the  Express.  "I 
was  at  Burton's  its  first  night,"  he  says, 
"and  saw  the  whole  (from  the  rising  of 
the  curtain  to  the  going  down  of  the 
same  upon  the  third  act)  of  the  play. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER    133 

The  first  act  told  exceedingly  well ;  the 
second  began  pretty  well,  but  grew 
heavy  toward  the  close ;  and  the  third 
act  dragged  very  heavily  until  the  de 
nouement  at  the  conclusion  surprised 
the  attentive  into  warm  applause,  which 
awoke  and  carried  along  with  them  in 
expression  those  who  had  lapsed  into  in 
difference  respecting  the  result.  .  .  .  The 
dialogue  was  as  effective  and  smart  as  I 
can  remember.  .  .  .  The  theatre  was  only 
moderately  filled  the  first  night,  imply 
ing  a  want  of  curiosity  in  the  public 
which  surprised  me  ;  especially  as  I 
thought  that  the  things  which  had  pre 
ceded  it  were  so  many  times  repeated 
they  must  have  become  stale,  and  novelty 
be  relished.  .  .  .  Your  piece  was  exceed 
ingly  well  acted  as  well  as  suitably 
cast."  After  three  or  four  performances 
it  was  withdrawn,  for  the  sufficient  rea 
son  that  the  receipts  fell  below  one  hun 
dred  dollars. 
As  the  curtain  drops  on  the  unsuccess- 


134    JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 

ful  farce  which  closes  Cooper's  career  of 
thirty  years  as  a  writer,  his  daughter 
has  Rural  Hours  almost  ready  for  the 
press.  "It  will  be  out  in  July,"  he 
says.  "  There  is  an  elegance,  purity, 
knowledge  and  grace  about  it,  that  is 
scarcely  equalled  in  any  book  of  its  char 
acter  that  I  know.  It  will  make  her  the 
Cooper  at  once.  Quite  puts  her  papa's 
nose  out  of  joint."  It  is,  indeed,  an  en 
gaging  book,  throwing  a  charming  side 
light  on  the  tranquil  activity  of  Cooper's 
home  life,  and  on  the  country  pursuits 
in  which  he  and  his  family  were  occu 
pied  during  and  after  the  period  of  his 
fiercest  controversy  with  the  world  out 
side.  He  had  bought  a  farm,  which  he 
called  "The  Chalet,"  on  a  hillside  over 
looking  the  lake  and  the  village.  Thither 
it  was  his  habit  to  go  daily  after  his 
morning  writing  hours,  to  superintend 
the  work  of  clearing  and  improving  the 
land,  extracting  stumps,  setting  out 
trees,  raising  crops,  and  rearing  poul- 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  135 
try  and  live  stock.  The  animals  knew 
and  followed  him,  because  he  was  kind 
to  them.  His  love  of  farming,  outliving 
his  pugnacity,  finally  prevailed.  Tired 
of  the  strife  in  which  too  much  of  his 
energy  had  been  spent,  he  became  stead 
ily  more  engrossed  in  the  congenial  voca 
tion  of  a  country  gentleman.  He  was 
always  warmly  affectionate,  closely  bound 
to  his  family,  and  sincerely  religious. 
His  religion  deepened  with  advancing 
years,  and  he  eventually  joined  the 
Church  in  which  his  brother-in-law,  a 
man  with  a  genius  for  goodness,  was  a 
bishop.  Thus  step  by  step  his  feet  were 
guided  into  the  way  of  peace. 


IX. 

THROUGHOUT  those  years  of  seclusion 
at  Cooperstown,  varied  by  frequent 
visits  to  New  York,  he  kept  up  an  ani 
mated  correspondence,  showing  unflag- 
[ging  interest  in  .national—aadr  foreign 
(affairs.-  Some  of  his  letters  express  un- 
'  commonly  sound  and  just  views  on  the 
^Mexican  War  and  on  slavery,  and  indi 
cate  knowledge  of  naval  matters  which 
would  have  admirably  fitted  him  to  be 
Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Long  before 
this  period  he  had  written  to  one  of  his 
numerous  naval  friends  :  "  It  is  a  melan 
choly  fact  that  there  never  has  been  a 
man  competent  to  rise  above  the  narrow 
views  of  those  by  whom  he  is  surrounded, 
nor  one  sufficiently  acquainted  by  prac 
tice  or  gifted  by  nature  to  supply  the 
want  of  such  information,  in  this  impor 
tant  office.  They  have  all  been  politi 
cians  of  no  very  great  school,  or  the 
mere  echoes  of  partisan  opinion  among 


JAMES  FENIMOKE  COOPER  137 
the  captains.  Reform  is  more  wanted 
in  your  service  than  in  any  branch  of 
the  government.  But  the  capital 
blunder  of  all  the  Administrations  is  to 
have  done  too  much  at  home,  and  too 
little  abroad."  Many  of  the  letters  to 
members  of  the  family,  giving  a  charm 
ing  picture  of  his  domestic  relations,  are 
too  intimate  for  print.  A  few  extracts 
from  others  may  serve  to  show  some  of 
his  opinions. 

On  February  1,  1848,  he  writes  :  "Has 
not  Scott  achieved  marvels  !  Yet  his 
accursed  General  Order  has  almost  oblit 
erated  the  recollection  of  his  victories. 
As  a  soldier,  Wellington  is  the  only  ^ 
man  living  whose  fame  can  now  eclipse 
his,  and  Wellington  succeeded  with 
vastly  greater  advantages  than  those 
possessed  by  Scott,  after  allowing  for 
the  difference  between  Frenchmen  and 
Mexicans."  On  April  13,  1850,  he 
writes  :  < '  Congress  is  a  prodigious  hum 
bug,  and  ever  has  been.  Mr.  Calhoun's 


138  JAMES  FENIMOBE  COOPEE 
equilibrium  was  a  humbug,  and  Mr. 
Webster's  answer  another.  Still,  I 
think  the  speech  of  the  latter  a  very 
great  speech,  showing  tact,  and  power, 
and  moderation,  and  a  great  deal  that 
is  true.  It  has  capital  faults,  however. ' ' 
A  lively  account  of  a  trip  to  Niagara, 
in  the  summer  of  1850,  is  followed  by 
an  able  treatment  of  the  subject  of 
slavery,  including  this  strong  para 
graph :  "A  desire  for  separation  is 
greatly  increasing  at  the  north.  The 
present  session  has  added  to  its  force. 
It  might  be  effected  peaceably  at  first, 
but  war  would  inevitably  follow,  as  the 
North  "West  would  command  the  mouths 
of  the  Mississippi.  Abolitionists  would 
arm  the  slaves,  and  a  servile  war  would 
follow.  In  ten  years  the  whole  south 
would  be  a  pandemonium.  The  soi- 
disant  patriots  of  that  region  are  pulling 
down  all  these  evils  on  their  own  heads. 
We  are  on  the  eve  of  great  events. 
Every  week  knocks  a  link  out  of  the 


JAMES  FEOTMOEE  COOPER  139 
chain  of  the  Union.  At  the  next  Presi 
dential  election  it  will  snap.  Tinker 
ing  will  do  no  good  any  longer.  A  prin 
ciple  mnst  prevail,  and  that  principle^ 
will  be  freedom.'7  A  few  months  later 
he  writes  to  the  same  friend,  a  South 
Carolinian  who,  when  the  war  came, 
remained  loyal:  "  The  Southrons  are 
getting  into  a  muss,  especially  you  Caro 
linians.  With  a  population  of  less  than 
half  of  New  York  town,  they  talk  of 
fighting  Uncle  Sam,  that  long- armed, 
well-knuckled,  hard-fisted  old  scamp, 
Uncle  Sam." 

Much  might  be  quoted  illustrative  of 
the  buoyancy  of  disposition,  the  warm 
hearted  generosity  and  hospitality,  and 
the  nimble  intelligence  of  this  widely 
misunderstood  man.  Some  of  his  best 
traits  appear  in  letters  which  will  never 
be  published.  Of  high  impulses  and  of 
uncompromising  probity,  constructed  on 
a  large  and  ample  pattern,  "with  no 
more  dodge  in  him,"  as  was  said  of  his 


140  JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE 
friend  Lawrence,  "than  there  is  in  the 
niain-mast,"  an  intrepid,  fervid  creature 
who  would  rather  have  died  than  lied, 
when  roused  by  conduct  that  he  re 
garded  as  mean  or  low,  he  could  no 
more  sit  still  than  he  could  stop  to 
polish  phrases  as  he  wrote.  "  Quiet  to 
quick  bosoms  is  a  hell,"  was  aptly  ap 
plied  to  him  by  Greenough.  When 
affronted,  he  struck  straight  from  the 
shoulder.  Sometimes  he  kicked  offen 
sive  animals  contemptuously  from  his 
path ;  they  bit  him,  and  the  bite 
rankled.  The  impetus  of  contest  often 
carried  him  away ;  but  his  acts,  if 
often  wrong,  were  always  above-board  ; 
his  errors  were  never  petty,  his  motives 
never  selfish.  All  this  was  known  to 
his  friends  from  the  first  ;  of  late  years 
most  people  have  found  out  that,  what 
ever  may  have  been  his  faults,  his  foi 
bles,  and  his  prejudices,  the  foundation 
of  his  strongly-marked  character  was 
valiant  manhood. 


JAMES  FEKIMOEE  COOPEE    141 

In  the  autumn  of  1850  Cooper  went  to 
New  York,  returning  to  Cooperstown  in 
December.  "I  have  gone  into  dock 
with  my  own  hulk,"  he  writes,  "to  be 
overhauled.  Francis  says  I  have  con 
gestion  of  the  viscera,  liver  included, 
and  that  I  must  live  low,  deplete,  and 
take  pills.  It  was  time,  for  my  hands, 
feet  and  legs  were  often  as  cold  as 
ice,  on  account  of  a  suspended  respira 
tion.  I  have  now  some  idea  what  the 
coldness  of  death  must  be.  Externally 
there  is  no  want  of  heat,  in  my  case  ;  for 
while  I  am  frozen,  my  wife  tells  me  my 
hands,  feet  and  body  are  absolutely 
warm. 

"  The  treatment  is  doing  good.  You 
cannot  imagine  the  old  lady's  delight  at 
getting  me  under,  in  the  way  of  food.  I 
get  no  meat,  or  next  to  none,  and  no 
great  matter  in  substitutes.  This  morn 
ing,  being  Xmas,  I  had  a  blow-out  of 
oysters,  and  at  dinner  it  will  go  hard 
if  I  do  not  get  a  cut  into  the  turkey  and 


142    JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 
chine ;  but  I  have  lost  pounds,  yet  I  feel 
strong  and  am  clear  headed.     I  really 
think  I  have  had  a  narrow  escape,  if, 
indeed,  I  have  escaped. " 

The  following  spring  he  went  again 
to  New  York,  for  the  last  time.  On 
April  8,  1851,  Bryant  writes  to  Dana : 
lt  Cooper  is  in  town,  in  ill  health. 
When  I  saw  him  last  he  was  in  high 
health  and  excellent  spirits.  He  has 
grown  thin,  and  has  an  ashy  instead 
of  a  florid  complexion. '  J 

Increasing  feebleness  did  not  dash  his 
spirit.  Scarcely  knowing  what  sickness 
is,  he  patiently  accepted  his  lot,  reso 
lutely  dictating  parts  of  a  continuation 
of  the  Naval  History  after  he  could  no 
longer  write.  Beside  his  placid  lake, 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon  in  mid-Septem- 
ber,  as  his  sixty-second  year  was  clos 
ing,  came  the  end  of  his  true  and  pure 
life. 


NOVELS  usually  fulfil  their  destiny  by 
entertaining  or  boring  for  a  moment 
before  being  presently  cast  aside  at  a 
turn  in  popular  caprice :  the  false  and 
trivial  go  home  to  chaos  ;  only  the  true 
pass  from  temporary  obscurity  to  their 
final  reckoning  as  literature.  To  build 
so  stanch  a  craft  as  shall  be  borne  on 
the  stream  of  romance  past  the  destruc 
tive  rapids  of  whirling  literary  fashion 
indicates  special  power.  American  prose 
fiction,  young,  tentative,  sporadic,  dis 
continuous,  almost  destitute  of  tradi 
tion,  often  charming  for  this  very  free 
dom,  invites,  as  a  whole,  rather  to 
irresponsible  prediction  than  to  pre 
cise  appraisal.  Among  the  multifarious 
species  of  novel  with  which  the  nine 
teenth  century  teems,  at  least  one  va 
riety,  the  earliest  native  to  America, 
bids  fair  to  bloom  unwithered  in  the 
twentieth  —  the  romance  of  adventure 


144    JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPER 

as  represented   by  The  Red  Rover  and 
The  Deer  slayer. 

Leather- Stocking  is  generally  regarded 
as  constituting  Cooper's  chief  title  to 
eminence.  So  firmly,  indeed,  has  the 
man  without  a  cross  laid  hold  of  popu 
lar  imagination  that  Dumas  is  reported 
to  have  taken  u perpetual  delight'7  in 
him;  Thackeray,  in  a  " careless  rapt 
ure,"  ranks  him  with  Uncle  Toby,  Sir 
Eoger  de  Coverley,  and  Falstaff,  and 
above  any  one  in  " Scott's  lot"  j  one 
patriotic  critic  finds  him  "  as  distinctly 
a  typical  product  of  our  border  life  as 
Eob  Eoy  is  of  the  forays  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands  or  Achilles  of  the  heroic  age 
of  Greece"  ;  another  calls  him.  "the 
most  complete  portrait  in  fiction ' '  j  and 
Lowell  rhymingly  predicts  that  he 

"  won't  go  to  oblivion  quicker 
Than  Adams  the  parson  or  Primrose  the 
vicar." 

But    Cooper's    hero   is  closer    akin    to 
Defoe's  and    to  Irving' s :    safe  in^  the. 


JAMES  FENIMOEE  COOPEE  145 
heart,  Natty  Jives  with  Eobinson 
Crusoe  and  Eip  Van  Winkle.  Largely 
for  that  unique  triumph,  and  partly 
because  most  people  are  landsmen,  th 
world  places  the  Leather- Stocking  tal 
at  the  head  of  Cooper's  work.  Tak 
together,  the  four  books  which  show 
Leather  -  Stocking  best  —  books  which 
permanently  enrich  literature  —  proba 
bly  justify  the  verdict. 

There  remains,   however,    that  other 
branch    of   the   work,    where  Cooper's 
supremacy  over  the  boundless  domain 
which  he  appropriated  in  1823  is  un 
challenged  in  1900.     Certain  scenes  in 
The  Pilot,  in  The  Red  Rover,  and  in  The 
Two    Admirals  —  scenes    as  far   beyond 
the  reach  of  other  writers  as  Homer's 
battles  are  beyond  the  reach  of  Virgil  - 
raise  the  pertinent  question  whether  the  1 
creator  of  Leather-Stocking  did  not,  after  i 
all,  bestow  on  literature  as  fair  a  gift  in  1 
bringing  into  prose  fiction  the  eternal  j 
romance  of  the  sea. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY. 

Editions  of  Cooper  are  countless.  In 
that  published  by  Messrs.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.  Miss  Cooper's  introduc 
tions  to  the  Leather -Stocking  books  and 
to  the  sea  tales  give  a  good  deal  of 
biographical  information.  The  maga 
zine  articles  and  other  publications 
mentioned  in  the  following  incomplete 
list,  from  which  everything  controver 
sial  is  excluded,  have  each  its  own  in 
terest.  (See  also  Poole's  Index. ) 

I.  Revue     Parisienne,     July    25,     1840. 
Criticism  of  The  Pathfinder  by  Honore" 
de  Balzac  ;  translated  into  English  for  the 

^  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  January,  1841 ; 
translated  into  better  English  by  Kath 
arine  Prescott  Wormeley  for  her  Per 
sonal  Opinions  of  Balzac.  (Boston,  1899  : 
Little,  Brown&Co.) 

II.  North    American    Review,    January, 
1852.      Francis    Parkman's  article  has 
unique  interest. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY  147 

III.  MEMORIAL  OF  JAMES  FENIMORE 
COOPER.  (New  York,  1852:  G.  P. 
Putnam.)  Together  with  various  mat 
ters  relating  to  the  effort  to  erect  a 
monument,  this  small  volume  contains 
Bryant's  priceless  Discourse.  The  inter 
vening  half- century  has  produced  no 
estimate  of  Cooper  so  good. 

IY.  HOMES  OF  AMERICAN  AUTHORS. 
(New  York,  1853:  G.  P.  Putnam  &  Co.) 
Henry  Theodore  Tuckerman,  who  wrote 
the  sketch  of  Cooper,  knew  and  under 
stood  him. 

V.  North     American     Beview,    October, 
1859.      Henry    Theodore    Tuckerman' s 
opening  article   gives,    with  a  general 
review  of  Cooper's  work,  a  spirited  pict 
ure  of   his  conduct  during  the  Naval 
History  arbitration. 

VI.  PAGES  AND  PICTURES.     By  Susan 
Fenimore  Cooper.     (New  York,   1861 : 
W.  A.  Townsend  &  Co. )    Extracts,  illus 
trations    by    Barley    and    others,    and 


148  BIBLIOGEAPHY 

"notes  relating  to  the  different  works 
whence  the  pages  have  been  drawn. " 
A  beautiful  book,  as  well  as  a  source 
of  authentic  biographical  information, 
much  of  which  reappears  in  the  intro 
ductions  to  the  novels. 

VII.  Appleton's     Journal,    August     29, 
1874.     John  Esten  Cooke  enters  a  plea 
for  Cooper7  s  Indians. 

VIII.  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER.     By 
Thomas  E.  Lounsbury.     {American  Men 
of   Letters.      Boston,    1883 :    Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.)     The  ability  shown  in 
this  work  should  give  pause  to  whoever 
would  venture  on  the  same  field. 

IX.  Atlantic  Monthly,  February  and  Oc 
tober,    1887.     "A  Glance   Backward" 
and   "A   Second    Glance   Backward.7' 
By  Susan  Fenimore  Cooper.     The  first 
article  is  virtually  an  introduction  to 
The  Spy;    the  second  tells  of   the  life 
abroad  from  the  summer  of  1828  until 
the  summer  of  1830. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY  149  . 

X.  AMERICAN  LANDS  AND  LETTERS,  I. 
By  Donald  Grant  Mitchell.    (New  York, 
1897:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.)   Written 
with  natural  ease,   from  the  point  of 
view  of  an  intermediate  generation,  the 
pages  on  Cooper  have  flavour. 

XI.  Dial,  Chicago,  February  16,  1897. 
A  sensible  reply  by  D.  L.  Maulsby  to 
Mark  Twain's  critical  eccentricity  in  the 
North  American  Review  of  July,  1895. 

XII.  AMERICAN  BOOKMEN.     By  M.  A. 
DeWolfe    Howe.       (New   York,    1898: 
Dodd,   Mead  &  Co.)     Includes  an  at 
tractive  appreciation  of  Cooper. 

XIII.  LITERARY  HAUNTS  AND  HOMES. 
By  Theodore  F.  Wolfe.     (Philadelphia, 
1899:   J.    B.    Lippincott  &  Co.)     The 
chapter  on  Cooper  is  instructive. 

XIV.  A  LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  AMER 
ICA.    By  Barrett  Wendell.     (New  York  : 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons;    London:    T. 
Fisher  Unwin.     Ingress.) 


THE  BEACON   BIOGRAPHIES. 

M.  A.  DE WOLFE  HOWE,  Editor. 


The  aim  of  this  series  is  to  furnish  brief,  read 
able,  and  authentic  accounts  of  the  lives  of  those 
Americans  whose  personalities  have  impressed 
themselves  most  deeply  on  the  character  and 
history  of  their  country.  On  account  of  the 
length  of  the  more  formal  lives,  often  running 
into  large  volumes,  the  average  busy  man  and 
woman  have  not  the  time  or  hardly  the  inclina 
tion  to  acquaint  themselves  with  American  bi 
ography.  In  the  present  series  everything  that 
such  a  reader  would  ordinarily  care  to  know  is 
given  by  writers  of  special  competence,  who 
possess  in  full  measure  the  best  contemporary 
point  of  view.  Each  volume  is  equipped  with 
a  frontispiece  portrait,  a  calendar  of  important 
dates,  and  a  brief  bibliography  for  further  read 
ing.  Finally,  the  volumes  are  printed  in  a  form 
convenient  for  reading  and  for  carrying  handily 
in  the  pocket. 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY,  Publishers, 

6   BEACON   STREET,  BOSTON. 

[OVER.] 


THE  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES. 


The  following  volumes  are  issued  :  — 

Phillips  Brooks,  by  the  EDITOR. 

John  Brown,  by  JOSEPH  EDGAR  CHAMBERLIN. 

Aaron  Burr,  by  HENRY  CHILDS  MERWIN. 

James  Fenimore  Cooper,  by  W.  B.  SHUBRICK  CLYMER. 

Stephen  Decatur,  by  CYRUS  TOWNSEND  BRADY. 

Frederick  Douglass,  by  CHARLES  W.  CHESTNUTT. 

David  G.  Farragut,  by  JAMES  BARNES. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  by  Mrs.  JAMES  T.  FIELDS. 

Sam  Houston,  by  SARAH  BARNWELL  ELLIOTT. 

"  Stonewall "  Jackson,  by  CARL  HOVEY. 

Robert  E.  Lee,  by  WILLIAM  P.  TRENT. 

James  Russell  Lowell,  by  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  Jr. 

Thomas  PaiAe,  by  ELLERY  SEDGWICK. 

Daniel  Webster,  by  NORMAN  HAPGOOD. 

The  following  are  among  those  in  preparation:  — 

Louis  Agassiz,  by  ALICE  BACHE  GOULD. 
John  James  Audubon,  by  JOHN  BURROUGHS. 
Edwin  Booth,  by  CHARLES  TOWNSEND  COPELAND. 
Benjamin  Franklin,  by  LINDSAY  SWIFT. 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  by  OWEN  WISTER. 
Alexander  Hamilton,  by  JAMES  SCHOULER. 
Father  Hecker,  by  HENRY  D.  SEDGWICK. 
Thomas  JeffersjaiuJjvJHon.  THOMAS  E.  WATSON. 


Henry  W.  Longfellow,  by  GEORGE  RICE  CARPENTER. 
S.  F.  B.  Morse,  by  JOHN  TROWBRIDGE. 
J.  6.  Whittier,  by  RICHARD  BURTON. 


THE  WESTMINSTER   BIOG 
RAPHIES. 


The  WESTMINSTER  BIOGRAPHIES  are  uniform  in  plan, 
size,  and  general  make-up  with  the  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES, 
the  point  of  important  difference  lying  in  the  fact  that 
they  deal  with  the  lives  of  eminent  Englishmen  instead 
of  with  those  of  eminent  Americans.  They  are  bound  in 
limp  red  cloth,  are  gilt-topped,  and  have  a  cover  design  and 
a  vignette  title-page  by  BERTRAM  GROSVENOR  GOODHUE. 

The  following  volumes  are  issued :  — 

Robert  Browning,  by  ARTHUR  WAUGH. 
Daniel  Defoe,  by  WILFRED  WHITTEN. 
Adam  Duncan,  by  H.  W.  WILSON. 
John  Wesley,  by  FRANK  BANFIELD. 

Many  others  are  in  preparation. 


SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY,  Publishers, 
6  BEACON  STREET,  BOSTON. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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